


Undiminshed

by quicksylver28



Series: LowFlyers Club Universe [1]
Category: Stargate Atlantis, Stargate SG-1, The Sentinel
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/F, F/M, M/M, Multi, Next Generation, Original Character(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-28
Updated: 2014-06-29
Packaged: 2018-01-21 03:20:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 16
Words: 37,994
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1535666
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quicksylver28/pseuds/quicksylver28
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Someone is killing Guides and no one seems to notice. It’s up to ex military PI and unbonded Sentinel Brennan Sheppard solve the case. With the aid of linguist / rare book restorer / hippie Guide M. Regina Carter-Mckay, the black sheep of the Famous Carter Mckays, they must find a killer before another Guide dies.</p><p>I've decided to end it at 16 chapters and part up any further parts as a sequel.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

She had a tissue sticking out the strap of her bra. The flimsy white paper peeking out from under a well worn and painstakingly cared for dress, one of those flower patterned, almost shapeless things that swallowed the wearer. Rips along one of the pockets and sleeve had been darned with neat and uniform stitches that were almost invisible at a glance. The hole from a cigarette burn was had been delicately stitched into a flower pattern that blended with the material that had been worn and washed many times. Another tissue lay twisted and torn in long spindly fingers of her dry and wrinkled hands, a road map to a life of hard labour. Steam and chemical burns along her palms and forearms spoke of a job in cleaning, maybe at a laundry. A faint chemical scent lingered, the sharp cut of steam and starch on the nose. Yes, definitely a laundry. Her hair was damp with sweat, her pallid skin looked thin and pulled under the heavy humidity of what the weather channel was calling “severe heat wave conditions” but what residents were calling hell on earth.

She blotted her eyes once again and stuffed the tortured napkin into her purse, the movement making several crumpled tissues spill out onto her chair and to the floor. She made them no mind.

“i went to the police you see, they told me… they told me that she must be having fun with some friends, lost track of time, forgot to call. That I just had to wait and she would come back.”

Her voice would have been called sexy once, that deep dulcet tone that would have made toes curl. Now, years of hardship and hard living had left but an echo of that velvet. She leaned forward, almost unconsciously, as she spoke; her large grey eyes wide with tears and yearning. They were startling and beautiful and spoke of the vibrant woman she must have been before life had aged her so. The tissue twisted again.

“But my Cindy, she’s not like that. She’s a good girl, a quiet girl. She studies hard, gonna start college soon. Full scholarship. She knows better than to go with boys. It’s been a week you see, she would never… she just knows better.”

That was the clencher. It had been a week since Cynthia “Cindy to her friends” Riley had been seen leaving the construction office where she worked for her uncle as part time office clerk to earn a little extra cash before heading to college. Seven whole days of no contact with her family, friends or anyone who knew her. Somewhere out there was this woman’s little girl.

Brennan looked at the woman, sitting in the fading light of the evening on one of her mismatched office chairs. The setting sun painted the office in dusky yellows and oranges and the shadows slowly crawled the walls and floor. At times like this, she remembered watching old detective movies as a child, mesmerized as the femme fatale sauntered across the set to perch upon the detective’s desk. Most people who knew of her obsession thought that she wanted to be the sensuous mystery woman who, as her grandfather once said, “walked in beauty like the night”. When others would tease and scoff at her, He would laugh and pat her on the head, for he alone knew that in her heart of hearts she was always the detective, the Sam Spade character who solved the case and kicked bad guy ass.

A pang of grief hit her hard and she rubbed her chest with her fingertips, grimacing. Her grandfather’s passing had been the final blow in a truly fucked up period in her life. Adding to that miasma with her exit from the military, her injury, the loss of a lifelong dream and the strained relationship with her family, it had been a dark time for her. But there wasn’t time to dwell on that now. She wasn’t at home where she could fall into a bottle of Southern Comfort and pass out on her kitchen floor. There was a young girl missing and nobody was looking for her.

“Mrs. Riley…”

“Ms. Riley. I’m not married you see. Cynthia’s father was… well he wasn’t around for her, for any of us. It’s just been just me and her. Her uncle, my brother helps us when we need it. He and his family have been very good to us. He’s been like a father to her when he can. Gave her the part time job at his business to earn money before she went off to school. She wanted to earn money for the things she needed, never wanted to burden me with things like that. Such a good, kind girl you see. Never one to run off, not tell me where she was going. That’s why I know something’s wrong.”

She took a deep breath then. Her voice had started out as a whisper and had grown to almost a wail in agitation. The tissue was smoothed out in her lap and crumpled again several times as she collected herself.

Brennan let her be for a moment. She found that client like this often told more voluntarily than as answers to questions. People forgot things, omitted things and grew defensive at times. It was best to just listen and observe, what they said, what they didn’t say, their body language, their manner. Everything was a clue, everything would be catalogued and examined later until the facts and observations could fit tighter like a construct in the mind to be drawn up and examined from every angle when needed.

“She’s always a kind girl you see, real friendly like. People just like her you know. She’s always talking to people, strangers on the street. I told her about that, warned her. Even when she was young. Don’t talk to strangers, I would say and she would say Yes Mama. Just like that – Yes Mama. But I couldn’t stay mad. I could never stay mad. She’s such a good girl. She would just talk to anybody. I thought that maybe someone she talked too may have liked her too much. That they maybe took my baby because they like her so much.”

There is was. Hesitation. There was something more, something she was not saying.

Brennan sat back and laced her fingers together over her stomach.

“What makes you think I can help? Maybe she just needed sometime away before school starts. Maybe the police are right. It’s been known to happen”

“Not my Cindy!”

Anger now. Warring with worry and fear.

“I’ve tried the police. They don’t care. I’ve looked everywhere, called everyone. I’ve even tried….” Words bitten off and swallowed. She took a breath.

I need someone who will believe me. My Cindy would never leave me like this. She just wouldn’t do it. She’s not that kind of person. She just couldn’t you see. She couldn’t possibly. Not this long with no word. That’s why I came to you. I know you would understand. That you would know what it’s like.”

Brennan furrowed her brow. Ms riley looked nervous now, biting her lips as if to keep words from escaping, secrets that put that sliver of fear in those grey eyes and settled like a small cold stone in Brennan’s gut. Her body stilled and she searched the other woman’s face as she spoke.

“Have you…” she began softly, keeping her tone soft and level as if trying to calm skittish prey. “ … gone to the centre about this?”

A pause and then fear blossomed behind those eyes as the blood drained completely from her already pale face. For a brief moment, she looked like the white skull of death. Then a sound like a mix between a dry sob and a choked gasp wracked her frame and the stone in Brennan’s gut grew ice cold. The tissue lay in shreds among her tightly clenched, trembling fingers. Tears dripped down her cheeks and soaked into the fabric of her dress. Brennan grabbed the box of Kleenex from a desk drawer and came around to desk to squat at the weeping woman’s side. She waited the moments it took for her client to visibly pull herself together, looked into those eyes.

“Tell me” she said.

And Ms. Riley did.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Someone is killing Guides and no one seems to notice. It’s up to ex military PI and unbonded Sentinel Brennan Sheppard solve the case. With the aid of linguist / rare book restorer / hippie Guide M. Regina Carter-Mckay, the black sheep of the Famous Carter Mckays, they must find a killer before another Guide dies.

Of the many habits she retained from her time in the military, attention to order and detail was one she found most useful in her current career. Information was the life’s blood of detective work. The ability to take seemingly random facts and connect them to each other with the speed of firing synapses continued to amaze her with each case she encountered.  
The case of Cindy Riley was no different. To find her was to know her life and to know her life was the only way to find out where it went awry. The past few days had been filled with interviews of family and friends, sitting in her car or at the local park, writing notes and observations on numerous yellow legal pads, checking databases and following Cindy’s routine in the days leading up to her disappearance.

She would sit on the floor near the windows of her “five minute from the beach, bra” rent-controlled flat, with her case files and notes spread out around her, where she could see all the facts equally, letting her mind run over them.

The apartment was a lucky find. Situated upstairs from a pizzeria, it was spacious and airy and just “to die for”, literally.  
She ‘inherited’ it during her first case from a fellow ex-soldier who had served with her. A mellow, sun bleached, 6’4”avid surfer, he looked nothing like the clean cut Minnesota boy he had been when she had been his LT.

They had met up by chance just after she had gotten out of a session of physical therapy and he ended up telling her about the freak accidents that kept happening in and around his apartment. After they had laughed over a couple beers about the apartment being haunted by ghosts, they parted ways.

Two days later, he called her, breathless with fear that someone was trying to kill him.

Still hurting from her injury and her departure from the only life she had ever wanted, the notion that someone was trying to her one of her men cut deep. Even if they weren’t technically hers anymore.

So she hopped a bus and headed for the beach.

Together they had discovered that the owner of the pizzeria downstairs had wanted the rent-controlled flat for himself and tried to use scare tactics to get it, even going so far as to cause the death of the previous tenant, an old lady who in turn had bequeathed the apartment to her great-grand-nephew from Minnesota.

The whole situation had turned into a debacle that led to the pizzeria owner being led away in handcuffs for attempted murder by trying to shove them into the large stone pizza oven.

They had stood in the parking lot, surrounded by buzzing emergency personnel, coughing from mild smoke inhalation and first degree burns and when the detective had turned to her and said.

“Good work back there. You should think about becoming a detective.”

She’d looked at him for a long time, even when he turned away and yelled for the others to wrap it up. The thought stuck with her for a long time and she’d mulled it over, half listening to her PT coach as he put her though her paces.

She couldn’t do police work, she wouldn’t. The regimentation was too familiar to the military for her to bear. That left private investigation.

While she was contemplating her path in life, the surfer had called to say that he was moving to Hawaii to chase waves away from the crazy Haoles and that since she was ending her time at the VA hospital, he was signing over the apartment to her for looking out for his ass like a good LT would.

She had moved in with all of her one duffel bag and had lived Japanese style for some months until she had gotten her PI license and jobs started to flow and cash came in for things like furniture and pots and pans. The only reason she ate some days was because of the Chinese family who had taken over the pizzeria.

Still named Luigi’s, the pizza was still authentic and awesome and often, near closing time would find her sitting at the counter, eating a slice and listening to the family bicker good naturedly in Cantonese. As they closed, they would complain about how she looked like a crane and slipped two more slices wrapped in foil to her before shooing her out the door.

She nibbled on a slice now, chewing thoughtfully as she reread the notes of an interview with one of Cindy’s friends. Next to that lay a photo of the missing girl. A candid shot, she had been caught in a laugh and looked nothing like the shy girl everyone described her as.

The girl was 5’4”, waif like with mousy brown hair, more often than not kept in a fish tail. Freckles dotted across the pale skin of her nose and chest. Nails clipped but not bitten, showing no ongoing anxiety; a coat of clear gloss the closest she ever got to a ‘manni-peddi’. Modest clothing with pastel shades, she knew her body but didn’t flaunt it. This girl was no tease.

Her schedule was almost dismally routine. Lived with her mother, went to work at uncle’s construction business, left work, went to library or to the park to feed the ducks, went to diner near her home where she worked part time while in high school and stayed for an hour or so catching up with friends. Then from the diner, two blocks east to home. Every day, every night.

The only change was Sunday where she would do house cleaning in the morning, visit the farmers market for lunch and shopping. Then stop by her mother’s place of work to spend some time with her mother who worked almost constantly, then back home.

This wasn’t a girl would wanted to run away or take a break from her life. There was no evidence of a secret lover or hidden addiction. No erroneous behavior or sudden mood swings. She was just an ordinary girl living a normal life.  
Except that she wasn’t just an ordinary girl.

That day in the office Mrs. Riley had confessed the one thing that was extraordinary about Cindy’s life. The one thing that separated her from most of the other girls on the planet from the moment she was born. Cynthia Riley had been born a guide. A card carrying, spirit animal having, counterpart to a sentinel, online guide.

Just the thought of her being missing, that she could be afraid and alone somewhere, that someone could be hurting her made a heat grow in Brennan’s chest. A growl bubbled up her throat and she clenched her jaw to keep it in.

The main imperative of a sentinel was to protect the tribe and to protect the tribe, you must protect the guide. Just thinking about an online guide, out there in the unknown- a chance that she would never find a sentinel to complete her seemed horrible.

The idea that a sentinel out there would be searching, always searching for their other half left Brennan feeling bereft. She put down the photo and lay back unto the plush carpet, her arms behind her head.

A brief and intense sense of loss took her breath away and she blinked back tears. It seemed like just yesterday that she’d sat in that cold dead office and had been told that life as she knew it was over. Her world had cracked that day, eventually shattering during the events that followed.

She had been told in no uncertain terms that what would be for others would never be for her. That she needed to accept the fact that she would never ... that she could never...

No. she couldn’t do this now. Now was for Cindy and she needed to focus.

She sat up and shook her head to clear it. Any moisture on her cheeks was wiped away as sweat and she refocused of the task ahead.

Cindy’s life was routine, but there was something missing. She was a guide, an online guide. Where were her visits to the centre? Where were the times set aside for Centre mixers, classes, activities?

Even if she never went to the events, all guides had to check in with the Centre branch offices periodically. Some of her friends didn’t even seem to know that she was a Guide. Her mother hadn’t even wanted to broach the subject since that day in the office, no matter how Brennan approached it.

A reluctant guide? She didn’t seem the type. Those who cut themselves off from others, the anti-social loners or the opposite who lived openly as mundane, denying and reviling all things sentinel or guide, marrying mundanes and refusing to be matched or to even acknowledge a match, no matter the personal cost to themselves. Or to the ones they were matched to.

There was something to this. Something that rubbed Brennan the wrong way. Something about Cindy being a guide that sent a shiver of foreboding down her spine.

\-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Brennan closed the door of her non-descript sedan and adjusted her shades against the afternoon sun. The heavy heat made her white cotton shirt plaster itself to her body with sweat. She shrugged into a light leather jacket and opened the door to the back seat, pulling out an army green messenger bag which she slung over her head and settled across her torso.

The parking lot was almost empty and litter swirled and dance with the wind. She fought the urge to whistle the theme from the good, the bad and the ugly but in the end gave in. The doors to the building were monsters of glass and metal but were well balanced and swung open easily as she pushed.

The blunt cold of air conditioning running on high was almost like a slap in the face and chilled the sweat soaked shirt, making her shiver.

The hall was marble and cold, all dark hues and stern chastisement. Her steps echoed softly across the floor as she made her way to the front desk. The counter was elevated, the man behind it sat writing in a large ledger with an intense look of concentration. She cleared her throat and he looked up, his eyes lit with recognition.

“Hey Shep”

“Hey Cody” she smiled.

He set down the pen and closed the ledger, giving her all of his attention. She liked that about Cody. He was short and stocky with some south pacific ancestry in his gene pool. A scar crawled from his left eye down his cheek, making him look like he was weeping.

His bright smile revealed large white teeth that looked as if they could bite a femur in half. He often joked about when he was in college, his mother would feed him various dishes with animal bones so that his nieces and nephews could watch him eat. They still called him “Shark Week” whenever they came by.

“I’m here about the info I called about” Brennan said after chatting for a while. Cody nodded and pulled out a manila folder from a pile of others on desk.

It was at least a half inch thick. She raised her eyebrow at him and he shrugged.

“I looked for what you wanted. Pickings were slim so I ran with it and widened the grid to the neighbouring states. Got more hits after that.”

“Thanks man” She placed the folder in her bag. He was doing her a big favour with this and she didn’t want to get him in trouble by waving privileged information around.

He smiled that shark smile again and invited her to a house painting party he was having in two weeks. She teased him about being whipped by his new girlfriend and was they were making their farewells when the sharp clacking of heeled shoes echoed through the hall like an omen.

From the look of intense dislike that flashed in Cody’s eyes, she knew who it was.

He strolled along the marble hall like he owned it. Immaculate in his suit and slicked back hair. Olive skin and a handsome face that would made him the cover of GQ if it weren’t for the utter disdain in his eyes for everything else that he thought below him. Which basically was everything else in the world.

“Well well well lookie here,” his words oozed across the senses like thin sharp blade, scraping along the skin. “ I thought I smelled a rat.”

Brennan frowned pursing her lips to keep silent. Cody sat, frozen and impartial as a sculpture. It was only the mild cracking of the plastic pen in his clenched hands that belayed his restraint.

A perfectly sculpted eyebrow went up

“ Isn’t that what you are now Sheppard? A dirty rat. Scrounging through the trash of your betters for scraps? After all, there isn’t much you feebees are good for is there, than being private dicks…”

That black gaze jumped briefly from Brennan to Cody and back.

“ … and desk donkeys.”

The pen casing cracked in half, echoing through the heavy silence.

Before Cody could leap the desk and body tackle the asshole, another voice rang through the hall, breaking the tension. Brennan let out the breath she didn’t remember holding and looked to the new comer with relief.

Gucci Suit Asshole turned sharply with a charming smile but was shot down before he even speak.

“Not Now. Not Ever Glenn.”

Brennan swallowed the laugh building in her throat and it came out as a cough and if looks could kill, she would have burned to a crisp instantly under his heated glare. With a last glance that promised retribution of devastating proportions, he spun on his heel and strutted out the door like a ruffled peacock.

Ten seconds later they heard tyres squeal out of the car park and fade into the distance.

A beat.

“I really do not like that man.” Cody spoke softly but his rage was palpable.

“Trust me. Nobody likes that man. Not even his mother. And I should know, I met her”

Brennan giggled, yes giggled like a little girl and turned to the woman who spoke.

“Dr. Glass, always a pleasure.”

Bernadine Glass smiled warmly, her vibrant red hair gathered in a chic chignon, with a few flyaways that kept her from seeming perfectly untouchable. She was gorgeous in looks and generous in manner in the way girls who grew up as ugly ducklings were. She dressed to flatter her body and read avidly to flatter her mind. Her smile was radiant and light up her eyes like the green glass of her name.

Cody seemed to lose all anger at the redhead’s words, a small grin dancing on his lips.

“How he made Assistant DA, I will never know.” He grumbled.

Brennan and Bernandine looked at each other and spoke in unison,

“Sexual Favours”

That made them all laugh and they chatted for a few minutes about jerks in the workplace.

Soon enough, Bernandine pulled Brennan aside after she had said her goodbyes to Cody and regarded her with a serious expression.

“There’s something I think you should see” Dr. Glass said solemnly, her hand still resting lightly on Brennan’s arm.

“Doc?”

Brennan could see that the redhead wanted to speak from the way she bit her lip.

“Come by the Morgue this evening, there’s something I need to show you. It may not BE anything but I can’t shake this feeling that there’s something weird going on with the dead passing across my table.”

Brennan placed her hand over the redhead’s in reassurance.

“I’ll be here. 6 o’ clock.”

The doctor nodded, looking relieved. She nodded and said her goodbyes, heading back into the cool of the building.  
Brennan looked around, flipping on her shades. She readjusted the strap on her shoulder, almost feeling the extra weight of the folder in her bag.

She had a few hours to spare before six. Just enough time to grab some lunch from the local hot dog stand and head to the picnic area of the park where she could go through the file.

Hopefully, what it contained would get her closer to finding the missing guide.


	3. Chapter 3

An orderly squatted along a raised ledge near the back entrance of the city morgue. Dressed in scrub pants and a sweat soaked t-shirt, his scrub top hung across a railing behind him.  In the dimming light of the evening, he looked surreal with his disposable booties and cigarette hanging off his lip. The only sign of life the amber glow of inhalation and the soft plume of smoke escaping through parted lips.

Brennan nodded a greeting and walked past, nose wrinkling at the acrid smell of burnt tobacco. He ignored her, staring unseeing into the distance, just that amber glow and plume of smoke. As she passed him, the long ash of the cigarette broke off and fell unto his thigh, a soft flicker of amber glowing within it.

It seemed to take him seconds to register the burn as his fingers twitched twice then flicked the ash, leaving behind a small hole in the scrubs before falling still once again.

Brennan turned and walked though the automatic doors, feeling thoroughly creeped out. Ironic that even among the many dead and dismembered bodies held in the building, it was the living that made her uncomfortable.

The air was chill and antiseptic, a vast difference from the cloying sweetness of the park gardens in bloom. Rolling metal tables lined the hall, most were empty except for the few that held forms covered in sheets or zipped into cocoons of black plastic.

The soft hum of the phosphorescent lights the only sound in the deserted hallway, the harsh glare revealing each crack and peel of the drab wall paint and scuffed floors.

She readjusted her bag strap and pulled her jacket closer. In the distance a door slammed and she flinched. _That’s it_ , she frowned. _This isn’t some horror flick but if I see a man with a bone saw, I’m shooting first and asking questions later_.

She pushed open the doors of Autposy 1, calling for Dr. Glass. There was one body on the slab, a black female in her twenties with her chest split open in which the beautiful redhead’s arms wereelbow deep. With soft triumphant exclamation, Dr. Glass lifted an organ out of the chest cavity and placed it into a scale.

“Ah, Brennan, I didn’t see you there. Is it six already? Just go ahead into my office. I’ll be a few minutes.”

Brennan nodded and spent the next fifteen minutes trying to distract herself in the Pathologist’s collection of scientific journals, do it yourself manuals and issues of Good Housekeeping magazine. Even though she had been in combat situations and had seen many a good men fall before her eyes in many grisly ways, the sound of human flesh hitting the bottom of a metal pan almost made her revisit the hot dog she had for lunch.

Soon enough Dr. Glass was stepping into the office, free of blood spattered paper smock and plastic face mask. She smiled at Brennan and invited her to sit, moving around her small office like a hummingbird, puling files and folders together, placing them in a stack on her desk. She fidgeted with them uselessly for a few seconds them seemed to calm. She regarded Brennan with an odd look in her eye that the brunette could not pin down.

“Do you remember the Cut Out Killer case from two years ago?”

Brennan sat up from her easy slouch.

“Sure. It was just before I got back stateside. Some nutcase was cutting out sections of skin from his victims. Back of the neck, above the heart, inside the wrists.  No discernable cause of death. All wounds were post mortem. At least four victims were found before they shot and killed that bastard after they caught him dumping the last body.”

The whole city had breathed a sigh of relief when the killer had been put down. Tension had been ramped up for months while law enforcement tried to solve the murders. Several government agencies had sent agents to help in the task force.

The second victim had been a guide, which had brought the Centre into the mix. Neighborhood watch groups patrolled relentlessly, packs of sentinels roved the streets, no one went anywhere alone if they could help it.

Dr. Glass nodded and opened a folder, showing to Brennan.

“I thought that was the end of it, hell, everyone thought that was the end of it. Then, a couple months ago I got a dead body on my table that made me think twice.”

The photo was of a young man, early twenties. Even in death he was beautiful. Natural blonde hair curled softly to his shoulders, blue eyes stared unseeing into the lens. He was as Adonnis made flesh, his skin smooth and pale as marble and just as cold.

“One of the county offices had an overload of bodies, bus crash. I told them to send up any overflow. He was one of them. Eventually ID’d as Richard Wilmington from a flyspeck town near the Canadian border. Twenty one. Out here on a half scholarship at Bridgely U.

Found behind a dumpster the day before the bus crash. He’d been raped and strangled. Police eventually decided that it was a road trip gone way, way wrong. No leads so they closed it and filed it.”

Brennan’s gaze flickered up from the photo to her friend.

“This isn’t anything like the Cut Out’s MO. Yeah, the body was stripped but all those victims were immaculate other than the skin removed. This victim has bruises littering his body, not to mention he was assaulted. None of the others were.”

“Nothing that could be proven conclusively” came a rejoinder. “Back then the bodies were so sanitized before disposal that the pathologist could not tell if there was conclusive proof of sexual assault. What made me think of the other cases was this…”

She plucked a series of photos out of a sleeve in the folder and spread them on the desk like tarot cards. There were burns on the victims skin. Acid burns. They looked hastily done as there was some splash damage. There were three main areas of damage. Behind the neck, above the heart… inside the wrists.

“Holy shit” Brennan breathed, looking up to meet worried green eyes.

“I know right?” the redhead frowned. “it’s too familiar. There’s one more thing. Some of the details were never revealed by the police so rules out your run of the mill psycho copycat. There were another set of cut out skin on the original victims, high on the insides of the thighs. “

She flipped another photo into the lineup. This one showed patched of burned skin high on the inside of the thighs. Just below, in contrast to the creamy white flesh, numerous dark bruises in the shape of handprints seemed almost to boast of the utter horror and violence that was perpetrated upon this person while they were alive.

“Have you gone to anyone as yet with this?”

Dr. Glass snorted and leaned back into her chair forcefully, making it roll back a little.

“With what?a hunch? As far as anyone is concerned I’m just a necrophile, sticking my nose into a case that’s not even my jurisdiction because I have nothing better to do. That I need to get out of this body farm and find a man.”

Brennan’s eyes grew wide. “That sounded oddly specific for a hypothetical.”

Dr. Glass shrugged as her face flushed.

“I may have gone to a certain ADA we all know and loathe with my findings. As per usual he was an asshole about it. He even tried to ask me out after. Unbelievable. I don’t know how people put up it.“

“I don’t know how his Guide puts up with it. How that man isn’t dormant is a great mystery to me.”

“I thought Sentinels were supposed to be all noble with their ‘protect the tribe’ imperative. And he’s bonded to boot. How can he still be chasing everything in a skirt? You should hear some of the stories that float around Secretariat.”

 Brennan shook her head and flipped through a couple more pages of report.

“Mundanes have this romantic notions about sentinels and guides. Their still human beings you know, still flawed and imperfect. Only they have hormonal and instinctive urges that drive them into certain behavior patterns. You should read Blair Sandburg’s work sometime. It debunks a lot of the myths mundanes still have after all these years, no offense Doc.”

“None taken. I just always loved the idea that there was someone out there suited just for you. That other half, waiting to make you complete, you know what I mean?”

Brennan blanched and clenched her jaw, staring hard at the words on the page before her.

“Yeah.“ she bit out.

The redhead seemed to realize that she’d struck a raw nerve and dropped the subject. There was an uneasy silence for a few seconds that was abruptly broken when the loud clang of fallen metal pans echoed through the morgue and into the small office.

Both women jumped, the pathologist gripping the edge of the desk while the ex-soldier sprang from the chair into a crouched position, one hand on her gun holster while the other pushed her chair away.

The orderly Brennan had seen smoking outside was standing halfway through the lab, a stack of instrument pans balanced in one arm and a few boxes of disposable gloves in the other. The top halves of both piles were strewn along the floor, some still spinning and settling while other rolled off to disappear under tables.

“Oh it’s you Emile.” Dr. Glass laughed almost giddily. “You gave us quite a scare.”

Emile nodded wordlessly and turned to the nearby shelf and began stacking the items he’d kept from the fall. Brennan watched him work, hand still on her gun. The adrenaline was still running high and it was only when the readhead placed her hand on her arm that she relaxed enough to allow herself to be ushered back into the office.

“That guy is seriously creepy Doc.” Brennan admitted. “Serious hellmouthyvibage going on”

“Thank you Buffy the Vampire Slayer” Dr. Glass joked, “Never took you for a fan. How old is that show now?

Brennan shrugged

“You’d be surprised at what passes for ‘the latest thing’ at some of the more remote foreign bases. I once listened to two enemy guards bicker about what kind of fuel Kitt used and how much the Hoff had to pay to keep it running.”

The redhead’s laughter was sweet and uninhibited and was a balm to Brennan’s frayed nerves.

The pathologist perched on the edge of the desk and indicated to the remaining three folders.

“ I found three more cases with similar scar patterns. Different MO’s, different COD’s, the dump sites were different, scattered across the neighbouring states. None of them in within city limits. Either this is a really bizarre string of coincidences or…” she trailed off.

“Someone is trying very hard to cover their tracks.” Brennan finished. “Fuck.”

Dr. Glass gathered up the files and handed them to Brennan. “These are copies. Maybe you can see something that I can’t. If that pcycho truly is out there still then who the hell did the cops kill that day?”

The thought was sobering. She assured the doctor that she would look the facts over, securing the files in her bag. She would have to swing by Luigi’s and stock up on some grub because it looked to be a long night. These files and the ones she got from Cody earlier were sure to keep her up for a good while. 

There was a pattern forming here, just out of reach but it was there. And if she was right, it was leading to the one place she really, really didn’t want to go.

“Hey Doc,” she smiled as she stood in the office doorway. The redhead looked up, the cutest curious expression on her face. Brennan nodded with a grin to where Emile crouched searching for a rollaway pan.

“If things start to get a little hellmouthy around here, just give me a call. I’ll come and like, lay down some serious slayage on their asses. “

They shared a laugh and she turned to leave, meeting the blank gaze of the orderly as he rose from his crouch. Something flashed in his eyes, some emotion that Brennan could not identify and she let her smile fall away, her face taking on the expression that the men in her squad fearfully called the ‘cast iron bitch’.

He was the first to look away, turning to take the gathered pans for sanitizing and she watched his every move as he left the room. Slowly, she left the building and got into her car. It was full night by now. As she started the engine, she realized that the offer to ‘lay down the slayage’ for Dr. Glass was a genuine one. She even wished she had a stake on her right now. Or a good crossbow.

All Buffy jokes aside, that guy was way creepy.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Someone is killing Guides and no one seems to notice. It’s up to ex military PI and unbonded Sentinel Brennan Sheppard solve the case. With the aid of linguist / rare book restorer / hippie Guide M. Regina Carter-Mckay, the black sheep of the Famous Carter Mckays, they must find a killer before another Guide dies.

Sleep had been elusive. Brennan had spent half the night reading and rereading the files she’d gotten from Cody and Dr. Glass and the other half twisting and turning in bed, mind tumbling with thoughts and facts.

Sunrise had found her paddling out on her surfboard at the nearby beach, catching a few waves. Ever since she was eight and her father had taken her and her brother surfing for the first time, she had found that surfing always calmed her. The swell of the waves, the vast stillness of the ocean, the smell of seawater and the buoys that clanged like bells in the distance.

She’d had to stick her surfboard in the backseat like a dog hanging its head out the window. The non-descript sedan that was so suited for detective work was not so suited for racking a board. She’d had a jeep once, her first car.

She’d worked as a life guard the whole summer before she turned sixteen to scrape together enough money to buy it. Well, half of it. Her father had sworn that he would match her savings so she had spent her entire summer singing the Baywatch theme in her head and rubbing sunscreen on her nose as she perched atop the tall white chair.

Granted, she was no Stephanie Holden and it was the pool at her parents Country Club, be she protected the crap out of those rich bosses with their pale bodies and tanned mistresses, the society moms with their spoiled bratty kids armed with floaties and entitlement issues, the fashion plate popular girls who never once set foot in the water because it would ruin their makeup and designer bathing suits. Not one life or drink lost that summer.

By the time school had commenced, when her friends were just starting to contemplate getting a driver’s permit, she was pulling up in her cherry red almost good as new two door Jeep.

She’d hung her dad’s old aviator glasses on the rearview, racked her surfboard and slapped a deadhead sticker on the rear bumper. That jeep had been her trusty chariot until the day she left for boot camp.

When she got back, after the discharge, she found out that her mother had donated the jeep to a charity auction because “ _it was just so much clutter dearest_ ”. That had cued the inevitable fight and she had stormed out, smarting that one more thing from her life had been taken away.

Now her chariot was the ‘non-descript sedan’. Great for work but hard on pride. It couldn’t be helped though, even if she could afford a better car, she no place to park it. Parking in the city was already cutthroat. She may as well rent another apartment and park in it.

A stop back at her place for a quick shower and change and she was on the road again, heading for the one place she really didn’t want to go. She often thought about turning the car around but she would look at the picture of Cindy Riley she had paper clipped to her car visor and would keep driving.

She pulled into the parking lot and was lucky enough to find a park under a large tree. By this time the sun was blazing in the sky, having washed away the hazy pale pink and blue grey of dawn. Brennan rolled down the window to let in the hot dry breeze and scribbled notes on her yellow pad as she sipped her coffee.

The car was stifling and she knew that she was only stalling for time. She drained the last of the cup and stacked the loose files into a large brown accordion folder, tucking it under the passenger seat for safekeeping.

She slung her bag across her chest and soon enough she was opening the ornate wooden doors to the largest white stone building of several that sprawled along the lush valley floor.

Some called it the compound, some called it sanctuary, Brennan just called it the centre.

\--------------------------------------------

The National Centre for the Protection and Conservation of Guides and Sentinels. The fucking Centre.

Temperature controlled, sound controlled, sensory controlled, _everybloodything_ controlled for the comfort of sentinels and guides.

She tried not to be too bitter, but it was difficult with everything that happened to her here. The place held a lot of memories and a lot of heartbreak.

She could feel the stares as she walked to reception, they made her back itch. Maybe they could tell what she was, that she wasn’t like them. Maybe it was all in her head and they just thought she was hot. Whatever the reason, the calm welcoming atmosphere the centre tried to exude was lost to her.

The receptionist was a guide, gaze sharp and wary as Brennan stated her business and presented her ID. Blonde hair interspersed with grey, drawn back at the nape of her neck. Laugh and smile lines were evidence of a joyous life and every word and action exuded such an air of competency that Brennan always found sexy as hell.

But she was not smiling at Brennan, she was frowning and talking on the phone, glancing between the brunette and the small plastic ID. Within two minutes Brennan was being ushered into a well appointed office and being offered a seat by none other than the Beta Sentinel of the City, Peter Samuels.

Samuels was an average looking man, well dressed with a forgettable face who looked more like a therapist than a warrior with his soft spoken ways and affable personality. It was only in his physical presence that his sheer prowess as a sentinel was revealed. He came around the desk and shook hands, beckoning her to sit, please.

Once, seated they spent a minute on uncomfortable small talk before he got right to it.

“I have to admit …” he began, leaning back in his chair and clasping his hand under his chin, reinforcing the affable therapist image in her mind, “it’s a bit of a surprise to see you here Ms. Sheppard. May I call you Brennan? How can the Centre help you?”

For the next few minutes she spoke about her current case and the others she’d found going back as far as eight years where guides had gone missing, some of them even turning up dead in other states. More often than not with mutilations of some kinds on very specific parts of the body.

Maybe no one had ever thought to put them together before, state to state communication was still reluctant at best. That some of the Cut Out killer’s victims had been Guides, even the unregistered ones had tested positive for the guide gene.

He listened intently as she laid out all of her findings, all of the tiny facts that came together to form a big scary picture if true. Brennan felt a knot loosen in her chest. Samuels was a sentinel, hell he was Beta for the whole city, he had to know, to feel that deep down imperative to protect, to keep safe all in his tribe.

With the Centre’s power and influence, they could find if there really was a connection in all this, if there really was a danger out there, one that they could find and stop for good. Brennan took a water bottle from her bag and drank to ease her parched throat, fidgeting with the strap of her bag while she waited for him to speak.

\---------------------

It was just like last time. Same kind eyes, same cold words. _Fuck you very much, thanks and come again_. Brennan couldn’t get out of the building fast enough, taking particular satisfaction in the slack jawed expression on the receptionist’s face as she stormed out of the office and slammed the large wooden front door shut with a resounding bang.

Rage simmered under her skin hotter than the sun overhead as she stalked towards the car. The nerve, the utter nerve of the man to dismiss her so easily, to say in so many words that she was an attention seeker who was seeing connections where there were none.

She slammed into the car and sat gripping the wheel, clenching her jaw as her knuckles went white from the strain. The engine gunned and tyres squealed as she swung out of the parking lot unto the road, almost sideswiping an SUV that had been pulling in. With the car horn blaring in her ears, she swerved and pulled the car on to the shoulder, trying to slow her breathing and calm the fuck down.

Her eyes burned and her jaw hurt from clenching so tightly. Shame mixed with the anger now as she breathed though her nose, forcing herself to calm, for her heartbeat to slow. She’d frozen in the face of her enemy in combat. She’s sat there in the well appointed office, like a dear in headlights, as the city’s Beta Sentinel had brushed off all of her concerns like so much ash.

He’d been polite, killing with kindness, as he dismissed any protest. He’d gone on to admit that the only reason he’d even agreed to see her was because of her parent’s legacy, because of her last name. That even if what she claimed was true why would someone even want to kill … He’s started to say it, that word. Her eyes had snapped up and he had stopped mid-word.

His cheeks flushed and he continued to speak but they both knew what he had intended to say. Feebee. Who’d want a bunch of feebees. She’d heard that word all her life, whispered among adults when they thought children couldn’t hear, thrown across the school yard by bullies spitting vitriol, slung through the barracks and in back alleys of Kandahar and California.

The politically correct term was Low-Level- that guide was low-level, that sentinel was low-level, frail, weak, only one or two senses, barely any at all. No spirit animal, no guide instincts, no use to anyone or anything. Too low to be seen as protectors, too weird to be mundane. Unwanted by both.

The first studies had labeled them feeble and the name had stuck. The mundane world spoke with lowered tone and averted eyes, the sentinel world called then the I.N.s. from the definition of the word. Feeble- failing to convince or impress- ineffective, ineffectual, inadequate, inept, insubstantial.

She remembered vividly the first day she had been summoned to the centre and the last day she’d felt at home there. She was sixteen and the mandatory tests done every four years for latent gene holders had returned. The doctor had calmly and kindly told her that when she came online she would be at the lower end of the spectrum, if she ever came online at all. She was that thing that people whispered about, that shameful thing.

The Centre physician went on but she could no longer hear him. All she could see was her father standing near the window, his handsome face a cold mask of stone. Her mother’s hand that had been on Brennan’s shoulder, slipped off as she gasped loudly. Brennan had shivered with that loss of touch.

The world seemed bleached of colour, sounds reached her as if through water and nothing had ever been the same since. Home had been different too. She and her father fought more- crueler, meaner; her mother withdrew from the closeness they had, leaving cool civility in its wake. Her brother retreated to boarding school. Their family has splintered, fractured and she hadn’t known how to make it better.

Her grandfather, who had been her lifeline to the past, the only one that still treated her with any kind of unreserved affection, dignity and respect, passed away soon after and she had been left bereft.

She’d flung herself into the sky the day she turned eighteen, singing up for the US marine core and spent the next few years flying CH-53E Super Stallion transport helicopters for HMH-466 squadron, "Wolfpack". Back then she’d been too busy being a soldier, pilot and squadron leader to think too deeply of the life she’d left behind.

Postcards sent from the different countries where she was stationed let those back home know that she was alive. Small piles of Birthday cards collected and held for her on base written in her mother’s neat handwriting and polite wording told her that life went on as it always did, her brother Matthew being groomed to take her place as The Sheppard Legacy. She hoped he fared better than she did in the end.

After the discharge, post cards and birthday cards had turned into awkward phone conversations on her birthday and new years that left her feeling scraped raw for hours after. Slowly Brennan released her hands from the steering wheel, flexing her cramping fingers. Her breathing had evened out and she laid her head against the headrest, closing her eyes.

The initial burn of her anger had faded and she knew that she had to keep moving forward. That she still had a job to do and she couldn’t let anyone stop her from doing it. With fresh resolve she pulled back on to the roadway and headed back into the city.

Even if the Centre didn’t believe her, she still had a missing girl to find.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Someone is killing Guides and no one seems to notice. It’s up to ex military PI and unbonded Sentinel Brennan Sheppard solve the case. With the aid of linguist / rare book restorer / hippie Guide M. Regina Carter-Mckay, the black sheep of the Famous Carter Mckays, they must find a killer before another Guide dies.

There was one in every territory, that is to say, there was one wherever there was a centre. Kind of like an anti-centre. A place where low level sentinels and guides could meet and chat, get support and advice on everything from job-hunting to grief counseling to attending mixers and events.

It was often a plain building, sometimes a warehouse or refurbished church. Sometimes it was a pub or coffee house. Staffed by volunteers, open to all comers with a network of connections that usually spread through almost every aspect of the community.

Of course the Centre cared about all sentinels and guides equally but many low levels felt that some were treated more equally than others. There was only so long someone could be treated like the red headed stepchild before they got fed up and left.

I.Ns weren’t treated differently on paper but the truth was that many issues they faced flew just below the Centre’s radar. Thus the Low Flyers Club was born. They’d started up in the 80’s, before then it was underground- a few meetings here and there, held at someone’s home or after a basketball game.

Low levels started networking, coming together, figuring out how they fit in the tribe that had deemed them weak and the society they were driven to protect. What skills possessed were honed, career opportunities found in various industries for those with an extra skill in touch, taste, smell etc.

The LowFlyers Club took you in, turned you around, gave you a solid foundation and skill set and a support base to lean on and sent you out into the world to be a useful member of society. In return, they asked you to volunteer time and the club, mentor others who were now coming online and lend of your skills and services when needed.

Just as the Centre had connections with governments and corporations, the Club had its own among the masses. If there was any help to be found, it was here.

The city’s club had been a Boy’s and Girl’s Club once upon a time. A fresh coat of paint and some donated furniture and supplies had been all that was needed to get the LowFlyers up and open for business.

The very first time she’d set foot in the building she’d thought it was a soup kitchen. She’d been taking one of her rambling walks that she usually took in the days post-discharge after a grueling physical therapy session. Hands shoved in her pockets, baggy hoodie up and over to hide her recently acquired ‘head injury scare’ shaven head. Not that she didn’t keep it high and tight in the marines but there was a buzz cut and then there was Lex Luthor’s personal hairstyle. She’d slipped on her father’s aviator shades and her don’t-fuck-with-me attitude and killed a few hours of the day prowling the streets.

The warehouse district was her latest haunt. The shadows cast by the large buildings were long and she could slip from one to another with that graceful stealth that came with military training. Raised voices had brought her out of her wandering thoughts and she moved toward them, almost hoping for some trouble she could roll up her sleeves and wade into.

What she saw made her stop short. There was a man in the middle of the street, scowling. A large cardboard box lay overturned at his feet, spilling its contents across the ground. The contents of the box, an amalgamation of small toys like the ones found in the claw machine, lay sprawled, some of the rounder toys still rolling and spinning along the asphalt.

He was a short man, thick like a tree trunk and would have made a scary picture if he wasn’t wearing a hula skirt. Brennan gaped. A brightly coloured Hawaiian shirt sat snug across his wide shoulders, complete with lei around his neck and another formed into some kind of headpiece. Under the skirt she could see he was wearing khaki shorts, _thank God for small mercies_ , and crocs.

His hands were fisted against his hips as he faced down the source of his ire. Three kids, no more than ten, circled him on bikes. Two boys and one girl, her Barbie bike shone like glitter in the sun light with its ribbons and sparkling decals. Someone had tried to paint the boys rides and had botched the job, looking more like formless blobs than the flames and lightning they had obviously been going for.

They circled him like sharks, dividing his focus among them as they road in and out of his line of sight. Brennan couldn’t hear what they were saying but every time a bike rolled over a toy, it would let out the most pitiful squeaking sound. The boys were clearly enjoying themselves while the girl looked like she’d rather be somewhere else, anywhere else at the moment.

Just then one of the boys yelled and the word rang loud and clear all the way to where she was standing.

“Feebee Freak!”

The man made a half hearted grab for the brat but they dodged and widened the circle, their laughter harsh and loud like the braying of donkeys. What ever the man said was lost to Brennan because something deep within her, keeping all her frustration and anger buried, just snapped and in seconds she was on them, gripping the oldest boy by the back of his t-shirt and ripping him off the bike with a snarl.

She can imagine how she must have looked just then. Her hoodie had fallen back to reveal her bruised and shaven head, large dark aviator glasses covered her eyes, her skin was pale- almost white- from the time she’d spent in the hospital and her mouth pulled back with a vicious snarl. The kids had taken one look at her and screamed, the second boys pulled his bike in a complete 180 and pedaled away hard, not looking back once.

The girl stood frozen between wanting to run away and not wanting to leave the boy Brennan still had hold of. The boy in question screamed at her to let him go, struggling to get out of her iron grip. It was only when the little girl cried out “Danny” that Brennan thought twice about opening a can of whoop-ass right then. She looked at the girl whose eyes were filled with fear and unshed tears and she felt a flush of disgust at herself. They weren’t enemy combatants to be put down, to be killed before they killed you. They were just kids. Punk kids with too much time on their hands.

With a huff of irritation she let the boy go and he quickly scrambled to his bike and they both took off, the boy stopping once he was at a safe distance to flip her the bird before disappearing around the next corner.

Suddenly she felt exhausted, the adrenaline and emotion she’d been juiced on had drained. Someone cleared their throat and she looked up startled at their closeness. It was the man in the hula skirt.

“You ok?” his voice was soft for such a big guy.

“yeah” she shrugged.

He nodded and started picking up the spilled toys and putting them in the box. Brennan stood there for a few seconds then started helping him. He rewarded her with a smile, which she shyly returned. When they were done he hefted the box into his arms and looked at her.

She gestured toward his clothes “What’s with the getup?”

“Going to a luau” he returned, “What’s with your getup?”

She ran a hand over her scalp and shrugged again. “Testing out my Riddick cosplay”

He laughed suddenly and deeply, shaking the box of toys. “I like you. Wanna go to a luau?”

She thought about it then nodded, sticking out her hand “Brennan”

He adjusted the box and took her hand in his. It was warm and calloused, the hand of a hard worker.

“Cody” he smiled and revealed the most perfect set of teeth she’d ever seen.

He led her down the block to a simple concrete building. What made it so unique was the beautiful graffiti murals that covered almost every wall. She hitched up her hoodie again as he led her through the corridors of the building to an inner courtyard where a few people buzzing around, setting up tables and hanging decorations.

There was an older man at one of the tables, setting out colourful plastic coconut shaped cups, and he smiled as they approached. Cody introduced him as Cylus, Director the LowFlyers Club in the city.

“Chief cook and bottle washer is more like it” he chuckled modestly and turned to Cody as he was handing the box off to one of the other volunteers. “I see you brought us a sentinel. Wonderful”

Brennan tensed. How could they know?

Cody smiled reassuringly and tapped a finger against his temple “Guide.”

Cylus nodded and explained. “Cody may not be high on the empathy scale but he has a certain knack for finding others who may need our help.”

“Yeah, that and I saw the way you reacted when you heard what that punk was saying. Mundanes don’t often get that way over the f word. That was what clinched it for me. I knew I had to bring you here.”

The rest of the evening was spent with them explaining what “here” really was. Someone had shoved a bunch of streamers into her hands at one point and she was drafted into decorating and doing grunt work for the party.

Every time she tried to retreat into a corner, Cody or Cylus would appear at her side, offering food and drink, introducing her to the other I.Ns who steadily filtered in. Never pushing too hard or asking too many questions, nothing to make her too uncomfortable.

She would look up from a conversation to see Cody smiling at her with a look she couldn’t decipher at the time but now she knew to be the Guide imperative or what she referred to now as is “Proud Papa” look. That mix of bemusement and pride a parent felt when a child first learned to walk on wobbly legs.

Good thing she hadn’t know what it meant at the time or she would have clocked him one right across those pearly whites.

In the weeks and months after that, the LowFlyers Club had become like home. With her first home a lost cause and her second home in the Marines also lost to her, she’d been barely treading water at the VA hospital. Through the Club she’d found a cheap hotel to stay in once she’d been released from the hospital, they’d helped her fill her days doing volunteer work while she decided what she would do next. They even helped her apply for her investigator’s license and get a great deal on a previously owned vehicle so she could do her job easier.

Cody had been persistent in pursuing a friendship with her since he felt that because he had brought her in then he was responsible for her. He would stop by hotel room and drag her out when she was depressed and started exhibiting Hermit like tendencies. She met his boisterous family who either didn’t know or didn’t care about personal space or tact. Every time she turned about he seemed to be there, smiling that damned annoying smile.

Finally she snapped and told him that he wasn’t her father and to back the fuck off. He told her to get over herself and if she didn’t act like such a brat, he wouldn’t have to contemplate spanking her ass.

They’d stared at each other in shocked silence then slowly out of Cody’s shirt collar arose the heaviest blush. Within seconds it had covered his mortified face and continued up into his hairline. He looked like a pink jellybean. So Brennan did the only thing she could in that situation. She laughed.

She laughed so hard that she fell off the park bench he’d dragged her to that day and lay on the grass, breathless. Soon enough he started laughing and eventually they were both on the grass, red faced and panting. It had been the first time in years that she’d laughed so freely and she could feel some of the bands that she’d been keeping wrapped tightly on her emotions snap and crumble away.

As she lay there looking into his sparkling eyes, she’d leaned in and kissed him.

He tasted like the chocolate and peanut butter candies they’d been sharing and his lips were soft. One of his hands came to cup the back of her head gently as he deepened the kiss. With a shy smile she leaned back and lay her hands behind her head, looking up at the sky. It was clear and blue and too beautiful for words.

“I wish that you were my guide” she sighed.

He propped up on one elbow and leaned over her, his hand on her cheek. His thumb drew soft circles on her skin and she leaned into the touch. She’d been touch-hungry for so long. Physical therapy was so clinical that it didn’t count as intimacy in her mind.

He kissed her again, light kisses like raindrops.

“I wish that you were my sentinel.” he told her, “ One day you’ll find that one that was meant for only you. Just was I will find the one who was meant for me.”

He was such an optimist but she knew the odds of I.Ns ever bonding were low, for her even more so but she still smiled and took his hand when he offered it. They drove to his apartment in silence, undressing in the dark of his bedroom, his curtains blocking most of the afternoon sun.

She gorged her self on his skin, touching and licking everywhere she could reach. She could taste the sunlight in his sweat, feel the solid weight of his body on hers, feel the heat that curled in her belly when he put his tongue in her. Soon that tongue was replaced by a hot heavy cock and she dug her fingers into his arms and his back as he rocked her deeply into the bed.

She bit her lip to keep from crying out but that proved in vain when he changed angle and thrust deep. Cries seemed to be torn from her with every rock of the hips, her heels digging into his ass as the words more and harder fell from her lips.

Orgasm hit and she shattered apart totally, shards of colour like stained glass flew across her vision. Every part of her was laid open and bare, trembling and clenching around him as he also climaxed. When the white finally faded she found herself sobbing uncontrollably while he held her close, murmuring comforting words into her peach fuzz hair.

The next two days they spent in bed, sleeping in, ordering takeout, slow fucking and enjoying each other. He mapped her body with his mouth and she’d worshiped his cock with her tongue. They hardly spoke during that time, communicating easily through looks and soft touches. On the third day they’d dressed he pulled her in for one last kiss.

They didn’t say it. They didn’t have to. He was looking for his one and only and she would never be that.

“Hey” he called as she walked towards the elevator, “I signed you up to volunteer at the farmer’s market this weekend. Don’t make me have to come get you.”

He smiled that shark smile and she knew that things would be alright between them. She snapped to attention and saluted sharply.

“Sir Yes Sir”

She could still hear his laughter as the elevator doors closed.

\--------------------

Cylys’ office was small and cramped, shelves overstuffed with books and papers. More of a cubbyhole really, the small space was more welcoming than the ‘well appointed’ one at the Centre. A potted plant sat in a cleared out space by the window, the only green in the room.  The opposite wall held a larrge corkboard where various thank you cards, business, postcards, letters and pictures were tacked.  It was chaotic and messy and everything that went against Brennan’s military ingrained need for order but she felt so comfortable here.

She’d driven to the LowFlyers Club straight from the Centre, stopping only to pick up some food from the drive-thru and call to check in with Mrs. Riley. One greasy burger and one heart wrenching conversation later, she was walking the halls towards Cylus’ office.

Cylus was a Guide, higher on the scale than most at the Club but still Low Level. He was a man of modest looks, greying hair at his temples made him look older and more venerable than he was. His talent seemed to be in people handling. He had an uncanny ability to read a person, to know what they needed, what they needed to do and with whom they needed to meet to get something accomplished.

He was bonded to a tall striking Japanese sentinel who always reminded her of Saitou Hajime from the Battousai anime. In her head she always called him the Wolf of Mibu. He even came with the slicked back hair and chilling eyes and ran his own security consultancy. Among the Lowlevels at the club he was considered alpha and his stern gaze could freeze you at a thousand paces. Except for when he looked at Cylus. Then his eyes would soften with emotion and his voice would take on that toe-curling purr that made the libido sit up and say ‘present’.

Cylus’ reaction to her concerns was vastly different to Beta Sentinel Sammuels’. He got up and went to his filing cabinet without saying a word, took out a slim manila folder and placed it on the desk in front of her. She opened it and inside was a list of names and contact information. As she read further her eyes widened and she looked up to see him squeezing the bridge of his nose, looking more tired than she’d ever seen him look.

“I call them my lost children” he began, eyes still closed, “they stopped contact with the club over the years for one reason or another. Some move away, I managed to track most of those down. Some died or decided to go full mundane. Guides can blend in easier in the mundane world. But there were always one or two I couldn’t trace. Maybe you can find them when I could not”

He pressed her to keep the file and promised that the LowFlyers network would give their support in whatever she needed. They said their goodbyes and she left, the thrill of vindication warring with the dread that there really was and enemy out there, preying on guides.

So caught up in her thoughts, she almost walked into a broad chest. An apology slipped from her lips as she backstepped. It was the Wolf of Mibu, standing there like a man shaped black hole, seeming to suck all of the light from the corridor with his tailored black Balenciaga suit and gloves.

He nodded in greeting, his very posture screaming Alpha.

“We haven’t seen you around for a couple of weeks. Cylus has been concerned.”

His voice rumbled low and sexy like a panther’s purr, making Brennan body thrum in appreciation.

“New case” she explained, “Missing Guide, unbonded, low level. We think there maybe more than just the one.”

His laser hot gaze sharpened, something deadly flashed within them. As scary as the Wolf seemed, he took his position as “alpha” of the I.Ns very seriously. It was one of the things that made him and Cylus fit so well together. They both had a deep compassion for others and for their tribe.

“Have you gone to _them_ with this?”

They both knew who he was referring to. Brennan made a face of distaste and then shrugged.

“Dismissed it as _feebee bitching_.”

Brennan felt herself falling into the at ease stance, as if making a report to her commanding officer. She wondered what that said about her and how she related to the Club as tribe. When she was in the marines it was simple. Her men were her tribe, mundane or not. She would protect those under her command, those who served with her through the mud and the blood and sweat.

Now she was starting to see her own little tribe growing, with the Wolf of Mibu as her Alpha Sentinel, Cylus as Alpha Guide, Cody and others, even Dr. Glass and the family downstairs her apartment were tribe now.

The Wolf’s voice snapped her back to attention.

“They’re too focused on the big picture now, power plays at the national level, to see the needs of the man on the street.  They are like the dragon that flies high in the heavens, who can only see from afar, but it is the wolf that runs low to the ground, among the people.”

Brennan’s eyes widened. _Did the Wolf of Mibu just paraphrase fucking Saitou Hajime?_ She goggled.

“I believe I did ” he smirked, ”though I am flattered that you would think of me thus. He is a warrior of honour with an unfailing sense of duty and loyalty.

Brennan flushed under his amused gaze. She hadn’t meant to say that out loud. He chuckled, deep and sexy and between the heat of her embarrassment and the heat he brought up in her, she mumbled a mortified goodbye and beat feet out of there.

She made around the corner where her car was parked before she stopped to take a breath. She was positive that if she stayed he would have smelled her arousal and that would have just been too much. 

She leaned again the car and clenched her thighs, trying to suppress the thrum that came with the anticipation of scorching hot sex. Her nipples were so hard it was almost painful and she pressed the heels of her hands on them though the jacket.

_I really need to get laid_ , she thought to herself as she started the car, pulling out into traffic and turning toward home.

\------------------------------------------

Having resigned herself to having sexy dreams that night that included the Wolf of Mibu tagt-eaming with Cody and Dr. Glass, she let herself into her apartment, throwing her keys and pizza she was going to scarf down tonight on the kitchen counter.

She presses play on the answering machine, peeling off her clothes as the tiny box spit out messages from her dentist, the VA hospital and her cellphone provider. It was while she was on the bed, shucking her jeans when her mother’s voice made her freeze.

She kicked off the jeans and came to stand in front of the machine in her bra and panties. She pressed the replay button again. Then a third time.

“Fuck me” she whispered harshly into the silence of the apartment.

Nancy Sheppard had called and left a message on her daughter’s machine. It wasn’t her birthday, it wasn’t New Years. No. She’d been invited to come to a family breakfast the next morning at the house. That if she would be so kind as to dress appropriately and be punctual as it was a formal breakfast.

“Fuck me” she said again. A formal fucking breakfast. This was so not of the good.

The House of Sheppard had invited her to a Fucking Formal Breakfast. This wasn’t an invitation.

This was a summons.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Someone is killing Guides and no one seems to notice. It’s up to ex military PI and unbonded Sentinel Brennan Sheppard solve the case. With the aid of linguist / rare book restorer / hippie Guide M. Regina Carter-Mckay, the black sheep of the Famous Carter Mckays, they must find a killer before another Guide dies.

At eight forty five the next morning, Brennan was pulling up the immaculate driveway of the Sheppard family home. The house stood as a monument to glass and exquisite taste and had been her mother’s obsession ever since they’d bought it back when Brennan was two. One of her first memories from her childhood was playing with a book of swatches at her mother’s feet as she rode herd on the dozens of workmen that crawled the house.

Nancy Marie Worthy had been born the highest level guide in her small home town and she knew the day she came online at six years old that she was going to get out of that small town come hell or high water. By the time she was ten she’d overwhelmed the local sentinel and guide pair and had to be sent to the nearest city for more training.

So her small family had packed their meager belongings and gone to live in the big city. To Nancy, it was a bright new world. She was going to be trained at an actual Centre, not some back room in the local yokel general store. She vowed that day that she would be the best guide she could be so that when a sentinel came looking, she would be ready.

By fourteen she was at the top of the guide class, out pacing her classmates by leagues. She watched as guide after guide tested out, dropped out, burned out, and went back to their small town homes with their tales between their legs. She saw them as weak, happy as pigs in mud to just sit and wait for a sentinel to find them and claim them. That wasn’t Nancy.

She’d seen what small town living had made of the Sentinel and Guide pair she’d known as a child. To her young eyes, they’d been sloth-like, slow and dulled in both senses and wit. They were small and their world was small. Well, her world was not small. It was as big as she dreamed it and she could dream very big.

Along with her Guide skills she’d honed her physical and mental skills as well. She was athletic, well read, well spoken and knew about sports, government and the law so that she could easily fall into whatever line of work her Sentinel was in.

When she was seventeen, she saw an eighteen year old John Sheppard slumped with boredom across the room at a Centre Mixer and knew in her heart that he was for her. He was surrounded by guides, both boys and girls trying desperately to get his attention.

She’d wanted to claim him then and there but she knew from her childhood that if you wanted to hunt duck you couldn’t run at them with hands waving. She had to play the long game.

For the next month she’s scraped together everything worth knowing about John Sheppard and at each activity spent her time endearing herself to everyone who knew him and his family while ignoring him completely.

Eventually he grew tired of being ignored by the girl everyone seemed to be talking about and approached her. She ignored his obvious beauty, which had him off kilter, and challenged him on a higher level. Later, when party was long over, they sat at one of the deserted tables, arguing over a mathematical theorem, his pen marking quick strokes on the napkin he was writing on.

Just then, she released the holds she’d had on her guide essence and her power saturated the room. The pen stilled and fell from lax fingers as he inhaled deeply, his pupils dilating. The sentinel in him rose to respond and within seconds he had her up and unto the table, knocking glassware and flowers to the floor. She’d hooked him. A strong sentinel of her very own. Her match in every way.

In the whirlwind that followed, Nancy Marie Worthy from Bumfuck, Nowhere, had become Mrs. John Sheppard, Alpha Guide. Hardly any coaxing had been needed to get her parents to sign their consent to the wedding, her being seventeen and all. Just tickets back to their small hick town and enough to buy a small farm. A small farm for their small world. She was beyond that now. A bright and shining future was ahead of her.

A bright future on which Brennan was a blot. A dark mark that couldn’t be buffed out or glossed over.

———————————

Brennan checked herself one more time in the rearview mirror. Hairstyle- slicked down and slightly curled and kept back with headband- check. Attire- Flowered Sundress that someone could call dainty on pain of death- check. Shoes- cute sandals that squeezed her big toe like a fucking vice but looked great with the dress- check. Make up- expertly applied by Cody’s awesome sentinel girlfriend- check.

She’d shown up at Cody’s doorstep at five am that morning, frustrated as hell, pushing passed him in his half asleep state to throw herself on to his couch with a groan.

He’d looked at her and poured her a cup of coffee without saying a word. It took them five minutes of staring at each other in silence before and voice came from the bedroom.

“I know you guys have this BFF thing going on where you can talk through your eyes but if I have to be up at o dark hundred someone had better start using their fucking yap.”

With every word the voice grew nearer until a petite woman stood in the doorway, swamped in a football jersey that fell off one shoulder and ended at her knees. Cody had met Dawn at an outreach program with the Lowflyers Club from another city. He’d taken one look at the tiny Brooklyn born sentinel parfumier with a big mouth and hot temper and knew that she was it for him.

She’d given him a long searching look and shouted “Get ova heeah” and that was it. The next week she’d quit her job and was moving into his place. Brennan had asked her once why she’d done that, guides usually followed their sentinels.

“His Family’s here, his job’s here, I can get a job anywhere and my parents are dead. A Sentinel’s First Duty is to their Guide.”

They’d never brought it up again.

Brennan looked at Dawn with the saddest hangdog expression.

“Help me Tiny Dancer, you’re my only hope.”

Dawn laughed and sat as Brennan explained what a Formal Family Breakfast or FFB at the Sheppard House truly meant.

By half six, most of the women in Cody’s family had descended unto the small home. Some were called, bringing a selection of dresses and shoes Brennan could borrow since her wardrobe mostly consisted of denim and jersey. The rest just came to rubberneck because dressing Cody’s boyish sentinel friend up like a Barbie was something that would surely never happen again.

By a quarter past eight she was ready to go. Almost every camera phone took discrete pictures while she was being cooed over by Dawn and Cody’s mother MamaRachel.

“Feel like the fairy godmother” Dawn sighed.

Cody nodded as he slipped his arms around her. “Yeah, her carriage is already a pumkin”

Brennan gave him the hairy eyeball as she got into the car, waving at everyone in thanks as she drove away to almost certain doom.

—————————————–

The butler was new. She didn’t recognize his face but he had that same haughty look as he gave her the once over before escorting her to the Sun Room. She bit back a sharp retort, she didn’t want to ruffle any feathers going in. knowing her family it would start soon enough.

The SunRoom was the crown jewel of her mother’s quest for her third cover of House and Garden Magazine with epic glass windows that spanned all three stories of the house and looked out unto the immaculate backyard garden and pool.

Every wallpaper pattern, crown molding, dish and cup were placed just so to reflect the divine sunlight that shone in through the marvel of steel and glass. The very same glass that made the Sheppard Fortune what is was today.

Her grandfather, Patrick Sheppard had been a chemist and a latent Guide all his life. With his perfecting a way to temper glass that would let in sunlight but absorb and disperse heat and cold, he’d pulled the failing Sheppard Industries into a new age of success. Half the buildings in the city and in cities across the globe used Sheppard Glass.

The butler announced her as she stepped in. There were two people at the table. Her mother looked up from her conversation and smiled at Brennan. It was not a warm smile.

“Ah, Brennan Dearest, so punctual as always. I’m so glad you learned something from your galavant in the military. Come, sit.” She gestured to her right.

Brennan stepped forward, resisting the urge to straighten her dress. This was enemy territory. Until she knew the reason she was summoned then she could not slip for a second. She sat as the butler pulled out her chair and greeted her mother demurely, slipping back into her training as a child smoothly. She could play it their way. She looked to her right to see a handsome young man and it took a second to recognize.

“Mattie!” she gasped, “is that really you?”

He smirked, looking every bit a Sheppard with his white bespoke suit and carefully ruffled hair. He looked like the image of her grandfather when he’d been a teenager.

“It’s Matthew” he corrected “No one calls me Mattie anymore sister dearest.” He quirked his lip and continued, “except the girls in my bed but they just can’t seem to help themselves.”

He laughed as her mother blushed and pouted at him “oh hush you, you naughty boy”

As Brennan watched her mother pretend to be embarrassed by her son’s teasing she tried to reconcile this young lothario with the little boy she’d run and climbed trees with. He’d been her Mattie and she’d been his Bunny. He hadn’t been able to say her name correctly when he was small so Brennan had become Bunny.

She could still remember the day she’d stalked out of the house and into a waiting cab, heading for her first day of boot camp. Mattie had been home over the break from his Boarding school and had run out after her, screaming Bunny, Bunny at the top of his lungs.

She’d told the driver to stop and had leapt from the car to sweep him up into a fierce hug. He pleaded for her to stay but she knew she couldn’t. She knew that she had to give him chance to be what she couldn’t. To be the Sheppard Legacy. His results had come back high level. He could be what they wanted.

She’d turned and watched him standing in the driveway until the taxi had turned the corner, the figure of a lonely boy and she had cried for them both until she’d reached the base.

But he wasn’t that lonely boy now. He was Matthew Sheppard, Heir Apparent and he knew it.

Both Matthew and her mother seemed to forget she was even there, the conversation continuing with a rapid back and forth that spoke of a familiarity and closeness between them. Just then Brennan felt such a feeling of utter loss that she immediately squelched. Both Sheppards in front of her were high level guides that would pick up on any emotion.

The butler appeared at the door again but before he could speak, her father strode into the room, quickly leaning in to kiss his wife’s cheek before taking the seat opposite Brennan. The seat put his back to the sun and had the light shining in her eyes, a position of weak defense. Her back was also to the door, which made her twitch. She had to hand it to her father. The man was good at what he did.

And what he did was control the behemoth that was Sheppard Industries who had their hands in a lot of lucrative pies. The only reason why he wasn’t the Alpha Sentinel of the City was because his steel trap mind was set on a global scale and he didn’t have time to push papers at the Centre.

John Sheppard was a force of nature. Devastatingly handsome with sexy bed hair and ‘come fuck me’ eyes, he wielded his self-confidence and physical prowess like a weapon. Combined with the sheer heady sentinel essence he exuded, he was a man who got what and who he wanted, when he wanted it. Always.

Long gone was the heartbroken little boy her grandfather had told her about before he died. In his place now was a man, hardened by time until he was like a diamond, beautiful and cold.

Breakfast was served and for a few minutes she ate, letting the conversation wash over her as she pretended that this was just another breakfast in happier times and they were a family again, eating and talking and laughing.

“Brennan”

Her father’s voice shattered the daydream and she froze, fork halfway to her open mouth. She slowly lay the fork down and looked up. Her mother and brother had fallen silent and her father was looking right at her, his face solemn. Suddenly the warm fluffy pancake turned to lead in her belly.

“I got a call from the Alpha of the city yesterday. Do you know what he told me?”

The question was most likely rhetorical but she answered anyway.

“No Sir”

He said that a lowlevel sentinel had used my name to get a meeting with the Beta Sentinel to rant about some half assed conspiracy theory”

Brennan started “I never used your…”

He slammed his hand on the table, making everyone jump. Her mother’s teacup fell over and she quickly turned it upright. His voice was quiet and threaded with steel as he spoke again.

“Who the fuck to you think you are? Running around the city like a fucking rent-a-cop, dragging this family’s name though the mud with you? Couldn’t you at least be a real cop? Not this private dick shit. Couldn’t cut it in the military, couldn’t cut it as a real sentinel either could you? You’re a fucking disgrace, you hear me? A fucking feebee disgrace.”

He threw his napkin unto the table in disgust and strode away, snarling “you talk to her” to her mother and yelling for someone to bring his  _goddamned_  car around.

Brennan sat there, numb. Tears stung behind her eyes and she blinked them back. She’d come here expecting a shitstorm but she’d hadn’t understood how deeply it would cut. She’d never been particularly close to her father like she was with her grandfather but she had loved him deeply and had wanted nothing but to make him proud of her, to make him love her. To be his little girl.

Even now deep down, she still loved him and harbored the pain of his scorn toward her like a wound that would not heal. She breathed through her nose, trying not to throw up the breakfast she’d been eating.

“Only you Bunny”

Her head whipped up to where Matthew sat, sipping his tea and looking out into the garden. Her mother had excused herself and she hadn’t even noticed.

“Only you can get Daddy’s dander up like that.” he sighed and grimaced, fingertips massaging his temple. “It’s like he loses that famous Sheppard control every time the prodigal child comes up”

Brennan’s laugh was a little high and hysterical so she swallowed the rest of it down.

“Prodigal child means that I’m coming back and we both know that will never happen.”

He gave her a searching look. “Yes, we both know that don’t we.”

He put down the teacup and picked up a napkin.

“It’s like he can’t reconcile everything he thought you would be with what you are now. Grandfather called you his wunderkind did you know?”

She shook her head mutely.

“Mother said me that he once told the family that you would lead us all into the next new era. When they got your results back saying you were so low you were almost dormant, they saw their dreams shatter before them.”

“I was just a kid, I didn’t ask them to build their dreams on me. It was too much for kid to bear”

“Yet you left me here to bear it” he snapped heatedly before visibly calming.

She knew he was using guide meditation exercises to control his anger. He’d been just fourteen when she’d left. Younger than she’d been when her world came crashing down.

“Oh Mattie”

She reached for his hand but he pulled it away and stood, once again looking cool and in control.

“Yes, well. Too late to go back now… for any of us. See you around Sister Dearest. Let’s not do this again too soon all right?”

And with that he was gone.

Brennan sat at the table for a few minutes more, amongst the ruins of a Formal Family Breakfast held in the majestic Sunroom and wondered how could something so beautiful could look so broken.

She ghosted silently through the halls, touching the edges of frames and the soft petals of the flower arrangements and her heart ached. The house she’d once been amazed at now seemed so cold. That warm comfort of home was truly gone.

She let herself out the front door, closing it gently and trudged to her car. Carefully she put on her Father’s old aviator glasses and pulled out of the driveway. If any tears leaked from behind those shades, to fall upon her dainty sundress, she ignored them.

————————————-

She drove to the beach where she parked herself on a stool at the bar and wondered if it was too early to start drinking. She’d just come from breakfast really. Finally the bartender placed a large fruity drink overflowing with umbrellas and fruit.

“You look like you need it” was all he said before turning to another customer.

The fruit was tangy and tasted like paradise upon her tongue. Her mind shied away from the cluster fuck that was the FFB and she stowed all of it away until she could talk to Cylus. He was the only one she’d ever talked to about her childhood with any kind of honesty and he’d listened and not judged and that was what she so desperately needed.

She rubbed the back of her neck and took another pull at liquid bliss and thought to herself.

_What else can go wrong today?_

Just then her cell phone rang.

_Ah fuck, jinxed myself._

It was Cody. The girls probably made him call for all the details.

“I really don’t want to talk about it right now man…” she whined.

“Brennan”

The way he said her name stopped her short. It was the way you spoke just before things went sideways.

“Cody?”

Drink forgotten, bar forgotten, beach forgotten she gripped the phone tightly.

“Something’s happened. You’re going to want to see this.”

 

 

 

 

 

author’s note- Sorry to all John Fans. I love him too and there’s a reason why he is how he is in this story. trust me. but for now he’s John’s evil twin UtterBastardSentinelJohn.             


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Someone is killing Guides and no one seems to notice. It’s up to ex military PI and unbonded Sentinel Brennan Sheppard solve the case. With the aid of linguist / rare book restorer / hippie Guide M. Regina Carter-Mckay, the black sheep of the Famous Carter Mckays, they must find a killer before another Guide dies.

The crime scene was grimy and grey and wrong wrong wrong. The buildings, sidewalks and streets were drab and bleached of colour, even the sky seems bleak and overcast. The vibrant yellow slash of police tape drew the eye to the dark green of the coroner’s van. Beyond it white formless blobs bobbed around in the grey, CSI’s in their full body jumpsuits milling around a single prone form covered by a sheet.

Brennan tried to shake the feeling of utter wrongness that had blossomed inside of her since the phone call. Cody had been terse and vague, only giving her directions and telling her to be there ASAP. She’d hurried to her car, changing her sandals for her trusty boots and slipping on her leather jacket. She ripped the headband from her head and flung it into the backseat as she burned rubber out of the parking lot.

This ghost town of a crime scene only made that feeling grow stronger. Two drunks, sprawled against a nearby stoop were the only onlookers. Within minutes even they moved on. The street seemed devoid of life. Nothing grew, no signs of weeds or rats or even garbage to show some kind of human habitation.

The district had once been a booming industrial estate but due to legal and financial matters, everyone involved had lost their shirts. Now no developer wanted to touch this real estate with a ten-foot pole. Some called it cursed, a dead spot within a pulsing vibrant city. Others called it the Doldrums.

All but the most hardened gangs avoided it. Roaring through in their suped-up rides to spray paint graffiti and shoot their guns in the air. It was a lonely place to live, an even lonelier place to die. Any vibrant colour of yesteryear seemed petrified by time and neglect. It was the very picture of dismal.

She dug into her messenger bag for her Private Investigator’s badge and scowled as the policeman on duty gave her sundress and boot combo a skeptical once over. She pulled her jacket a little closer to her body, as if to keep the almost palpable hopelessness out. Feeling bare and out of place in her colourful cotton shift, she felt on edge.

The officer refused to believe her when she informed him that she’d been summoned to the scene but soon quailed under her heated glare. Before he could burst into pathetic flames, however, a voice rang out from the alley.

“She’s with me officer.”

They both turned to see Dr. Glass walking towards them, her vibrant red hair peaking from a disposable cap, her curvaceous body lost in a white jumper suit. As Brennan ducked under the yellow tape, she smiled smugly at the officer. It was petty, sure, but with the morning she’d had she wasn’t above a little pettiness.

“A couple of kids found her this morning. Jane Doe. They were in the doldrums on a dare. “ She explained as they walked deeper into the alley.

“They were just about to head back to civilization when she came screaming out of the darkness, naked and bloody. She tackles one to the ground starts to wail on him. Before the other can pull her off, she collapses and dies. Scared them shitless I would guess. “

She stopped by the van to pull another pair of gloves and handed them to Brennan. They were pre-powdered and she donned them quickly.

“I thought it was just another unfortunate soul until I saw this and I knew you had to see it too”

She squatted to the side of the body and uncovered the hand and arm of the corpse. Brennan’s mind detached and fell back into her training, gathering and cataloguing facts and feelings to be pulled apart and sorted later.

Caucasian female, pale skin, young, dusting of lightly coloured hair on forearm. Fingernails dirty and torn as is she’d tried to claw her way out of an enclosed space. Against something hard like stone or steel that ripped her nails to the quick, not mud or sand that would have caked under the nail. No tattoos for birthmarks or visible markings on the arm. Faint rope burn on wrist, meaning she was tied up recently but had begun to heal.

Gently, Dr. Glass took hold of the wrist and turned it over and Brennan’s mind scraped to a halt like a bumped record player. Inside the delicate wrist intricate symbols had been carved.

“Are they….?”

“Ante-mortem wounds, yes” Glass confirmed, “the poor girl was alive when the symbols were burned into her skin, the wounds cauterized almost immediately. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

Doctor Glass stood and wiped her forehead with the back of her gloved hand.

“There are other markings, inside of both wrists, back of the neck, one the chest above the heart…”

“Inside the thighs?” Brennan inquired softly. The redhead nodded.

That feeling of wrongness seemed increased tenfold. That feeling you get before a big dip on a roller coaster. When the rotors on your helo stopped spinning and you hung in the air for that split second before falling out of the sky. Her mind raced.

“Are the symbols the same all over?” she asked.

Dr. Glass motioned two of her helpers, who brought over a black body bag and laid it next to the body.

“They’re nothing I recognize but the ones on the wrists are different from the ones on the chest, here let me show you.”

She gently lifted the sheet to reveal the face and chest of the deceased. A larger more intricate pattern of symbols had been burned between smooth pale skin between the breasts. It would have been beautiful if it hadn’t been so grisly, if it hadn’t meant pain and suffering for the dead girl.

Dr. Glass paused in her supervision of transferring the body to the bag when she glanced back at Brennan, question on her lips and froze at the emotions running riot on her friend’s face.

Bernandine Glass had always known Brennan Sheppard to be a steady presence. Ever since she’d met the former marine years ago. She’d been in the wilds of some foreign country working with Doctors Across Borders when rebels had threatened the clinic. One minute they were packing supplies to evacuate and the next she and the other doctors were ducking and running across a clearing to a waiting rescue helicopter.

The soldier on board had refused to let the sick children they’d had with them get in and the doctors refused to leave them. Amidst the gunfire, explosions and wailing of the sick and dying and the almost deafening whir of the chopper blades, Bernadine had despaired.

Just then, the pilot had jumped from the cockpit, grabbed a child and placed them bodily into the helicopter, yelling at the soldier to  _get them on the chopper now Marine_. They’d piled in and were up and away within minutes. She’d discovered later that the rebels had killed everyone that had been left behind and she’d been heartsick. Her only joy was in the eight children they’d been able to evacuate.

Two days before she left to go stateside she’d walked the ward where the children were being kept. It was late and most were asleep. Only one was awake, a little boy who’d lost an eye to rebel violence. He was awake and sitting up, a smile on his face was as wide as she’d ever seen it.

Seated on his bed was a female soldier, a marine, kitted out in full pilot’s gear. They were speaking softly, the boys playing with a small model helicopter. The marine ruffled his hair and tucked him in, the boy falling asleep within seconds, the toy hugged tightly to his chest.

“I like to visit the kids. Reminds me of why we do what we do, you know?” the pilot said as they stood outside the ward. Her hair was held back in a sweaty messy braid, face clean of makeup, green eyes sparkling in the shitty phosphorescent light.

“Thank you” Bernandine told her “…. for what you did back there.”

“Aww shucks… t’weren’t nuthin ma’am” the pilot drawled, tipping an imaginary hat.

And in that moment, as she laughed, Bernadine thought that this tired, war weary woman, sweaty and rumpled, leaning against the ward and chuckling at her own lame attempt at humour was the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen and her heart leapt into her throat.

Two minutes later found they were making out against the shadowed back wall of the clinic. It was hot and heavy and tinged with desperation. She’d clung to the other woman as if letting go would see her falling into an abyss. Calloused hands found their way under her shirt and roamed over her skin.

The pilot tasted like coffee and smelled like cordite and gun oil and hot kisses scorched along her nerves like quickening. What seemed like too soon and forever later, they’d parted, breathing hard. The pilot smiled and placed a hot kiss along Bernadine’s neck, thumb brushing against the underside of her breast.

“Gotta go Doc” she grinned, straightening the redhead’s shirt. “Supply Drop in fifteen”

“Hey” the doctor called, and the pilot turned, walking backwards.

“Yeah?”

“Bernadine Glass, MD. Drop me a line next time you’re stateside ok?”

The brunette grinned and gave a jaunty salute.

“Lt. Commander Brennan Sheppard ma’am. I may just do that.

They kept in touch after that. Letters mostly. They’d never been lovers, the heat of that night had never returned, leaving only the warmth of friendship. After Brennan’s injury and return home, she’d seen this amazing woman weather a lot of storms with an almost effortless grace and strength of will.

That ‘s why it was such a shock to see the almost shattered look on Brennan’s face.

“Brennan, what’s wrong?” she took off her glove and touched the brunette’s wrist, the skin on skin contact seemed to bring the PI back to herself and she tore her gaze from the corpse that was being zipped into the bag to look at her friend.

Her eyes were pained and vulnerable as she struggled to speak. Finally she seemed to rally, her face losing all expression as pushed the emotion back.

“She’s not a Jane Doe. Not anymore.”

Bernadine gasped, horror dawning.

“Who…? “ the rest of the question stuck in her throat and wouldn’t budge.

Brennan’s husky voice was steady, her back rigid, every part of her kept in tight control.

“Her name is Cindy. Cynthia Riley. And for the last two weeks she’s been missing.”                  


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Someone is killing Guides and no one seems to notice. It’s up to ex military PI and unbonded Sentinel Brennan Sheppard solve the case. With the aid of linguist / rare book restorer / hippie Guide M. Regina Carter-Mckay, the black sheep of the Famous Carter Mckays, they must find a killer before another Guide dies.

The world had slowed and become thick and Brennan’s mind and body sloughed through it as if waking through chest deep water, leaving her exhausted. The ache of Cindy’s death, a guide’s death, was like a punch in the gut for the sentinel. The protective spirit within her flailed in impotent rage and sorrow. She felt brittle, everything around her harsh and abrasive and scratched along her senses.

She’d kept the painted white words of the coroner’s department van in her windshield for the entire ride to the morgue, her mind skittering away from any thought of what lay within. Every time she closed her eyes she saw that face, the one she’d become so familiar with in the past week, slack with death.

Everything seemed faraway and she hardly seemed to notice when Dr. Glass gently prodded her into the pathologist’s private office. Almost mechanically, she set about changing her clothes, stripping the happily patterned cotton from her body until she stood in just her skivvies.

Then piece by piece she pulled herself together, jeans and a white vest, coral pullover, socks and boots. She strapped her shoulder holster on and holstered her gun, slipping the permit for it into the pocket behind her badge. Leather jacket and aviator shades slung at her neck completed her armor and she was ready for war.

She slung her bag across her chest and took a deep fortifying breath. She stowed her emotions and ordered her sentinel spirit to stop howling. There would be time for wailing and gnashing of teeth later, right now she had to find the fucker who’d dared to lay a harmful hand on a guide of her tribe and bring down unholy hell upon them.

Out in the lab Dr. Glass was taking polaroids of the carvings that littered the body. Cindy lay naked, the bright lights of the morgue lamps made her pale skin glow.  _No_ , Brennan shook her head,  _that was not Cindy_. Cindy was kind and vibrant and cared for her mother and friends before herself. She was life and joy and movement what lay on the cold metal slab before her not that.

Brennan let the steady timbre of the redhead’s voice flow over her as she dictated her findings and observations into an overhead recorder. The pathologist looked up.

“We’re going to need next of kin to confirm her identity.”

Brennan nodded, “I’ll go get her”

“No, we’ll go get her” a voice interrupted near the door. Both women turned.

There was a Sentinel Guide pair at the doorway, Brennan recognized them from the PD’s Homicide Division. Detective Nuru Nwosu was a high level Sentinel, her flawless skin as dark as the African night she’d been named after.

She was smartly dressed and her dark chocolate eyes devoured everything before her. She had a command of languages. Brennan had heard her once talk down a jumper who spoke nothing but Polish and then turn around and curse in her native Swahili when a perp was tossed back unto the streets because of some kind of technicality. As a woman, a sentinel and a police detective, she was a force to be reckoned with.

Detective Ricardo Ramdass was Nwosu’s Guide and the American born son of immigrant parents. Having a Chilean mother and East Indian father and having a huge and varied family had given him a weird sense of humour. His easy going grin and mastery in Guide Empathy made him the perfect counterpoint to his sentinel’s no-nonsense attitude. He was a tall man, almost half a head taller and a good fifty pounds heavier than his partner but she was clearly the leader of the two.

“This Jane Doe’s our case Sheppard. We’ll take it from here.” Nuru stated, walking forward to stand on the other side of the body, Ricardo at her back.

“Like hell you will…” Brennan snarled. “This was my missing case first.”

“And now it’s OUR Murder case. Last time I checked you weren’t an actual police officer. These orders came from on high. It’s ours and you need to back down, now.”

 _How dare they try to take this from her?_  Cindy was tribe and hers to protect. And because she’d failed to protect her, she was hers to avenge. Before Brennan could growl at the woman, Dr. Glass spoke.

“What orders? How high up are we talking?”

“ADA’s Office. Seems that maybe the Cut Out Killer may not be as dead as we thought. Bodies have been appearing with wounds in the same places that sick fuck used to put them. It’s been deemed Priority One.”

The redhead snarled and cursed. “That conniving little weasel. That fucking, lying waste of space, grease spot. He called me crazy when I said it. Now he’s trying to put himself in the spotlight with my findings.”

“And succeeding. He’s been put in charge of a joint task force with the police, the FBI and the centre. Turns out that all of the victims were either online or latent guides or at least carried the Guide gene. The Centre’s got their petticoats all ruffled now.”

Brennan flashed back to her meeting with Samuels. All of the facts she’d laid out for him. The way he’d all but shown her the door.  _Fuck_.

“Fuck” she repeated out loud.

“If P.I. Sheppard would be so kind as to give us the details for the next of kin, we’ll leave you to your examination Doctor” Nwosu commanded calmly.

Brennan felt her anger return. “Like hell I will.” She hissed. Nwosu narrowed her eyes.

“Am I going to have to place you in custody for obstructing the course of an investigation? Or have you reported to the Centre with interfering in the protection of the Guide?”

Brennan flashed hot then cold and the words. The sentinel inside her roared to the forefront, a white hot rage filling her vision, sparking along her skin as she felt herself moving forward. Her body tensing for the challenge that had been laid at her feet, at her honour.

“HALT. SENTINEL”

The command vibrated through her like the clear clang of a bell. Her vision cleared and she gripped the edge of the table as her heart beat and breathing slowed. When she opened her eyes that she’d been squeezing shut, she felt cold inside.

She somehow gotten around to the other side of the metal table. Nwosu and Ramdass had backed up a few steps, The African sentinel was halfway in front of her guide and had her hand on her weapon. His  hand was stretched toward Brennan. It had been his Guide Voice that had frozen her in her tracks and brought her back from wherever she’d been. She glanced over to Dr. Glass who stood, looking stunned and a little fearful.

Brennan flushed with shame, wishing the ground would open up and swallow her any second now. She’d lost it. Lost complete and utter control and had gone almost feral on a fellow sentinel as well as an officer of the law. She’d endangered the lives of everyone in the room and she felt like utter shit. Maybe her father was right. Maybe she was nothing but a feebee disgrace.

“Dios Mio Sentinel, enhance your calm” Ricardo breathed, placing his hand on his partner’s shoulder. She slowly withdrew her hands from the weapon, relaxing by degrees, but kept wary eyes on Brennan, staying at all times between the other sentinel and her guide.

Brennan took a few slow steps back, keeping her hands away from her body so they would be in plain sight. Disgust and shame warred within her and she could see that her intense emotions were having an adverse effect on the Guide Detective. She pushed it back, shoring up her walls and soon everyone was breathing a little easier.

“I…” she began softly, “I’ll give you everything I have. I just… I told her mother that I’d be the one to tell her. Good or bad, I need to be the one to tell her that….” _her child was gone_. “Please, at least I can give her that.”

Nwosu looked mutinous but Ramdass placed a hand on her neck and they shared a moment of private conversation. Brennan took that moment to look at Dr. Glass. The redhead was hugging her camera to her chest, compassion shining in her eyes. A part of Brennan loosened, she’d been afraid that her behavior had lost her a good friend and she was almost weak with relief.

A grumbling Nwosu gave her assent and Brennan ducked into the office to pick up her bag of clothes. Dr. Glass ducked in behind her.

Any apologies that would have tumblied from her lips were silenced by a kiss from the doctor. The soft innocent press of lips was a balm to her frayed nerves. The redhead pulled away slowly and brought a hand up to cup Brenna’s cheek. The touch was warm and the thumb gently brushed away a stray tear.

“You are a warrior, a sentinel and my friend. Never forget that.”

She whispered and kissed away another tear, ignoring the single broken sob that escaped the brunette.

Within minutes Brennan was on her way to the laundry mat, the detectives following behind her in their own non-descript sedan. The sun shone merrily and it was hard to believe that it was only just mid-afternoon. The Formal Family Breakfast seemed a million years ago.

The door chimed its opening but the sound was lost among the churning of the washers that lined the walls. Ms. Riley was seated at the front desk, hunched over a garment she was repairing. A small lamp threw enough light to flash upon the needles quick and concise movements.

Brennan dreaded stepping closer. If the woman saw her she would surely know. She would know that the little hope she held out that her daughter would be brought back to her alive and well was gone.

Ricardo eventually stepped around her and approached the counter, Nwosu followed. Brennan’s feet seemed to be made of concrete as she dragged herself forward.

Ms. Riley looked up as a shadow fell across her work, the bifocal glasses she wore for intricate stitching magnified her beautiful grey eyes. The detectives began to introduce themselves but the woman paid them no attention as her gaze caught on Brennan. Everything she was and everything her daughter could be was in that gaze.

Brennan shook her head, “We found her. I’m sorry”

With those five words, the woman seemed to collapse upon herself. It was as if what life that was in her had fled and she was just as dead as her one and only child.

After that came the nightmare of escorting the distraught woman back to the morgue and witnessing her breakdown yet again at the sight of the still body of what used to be her daughter.

As she stood, clinging to Brennan, her tears soaking into her jacket, the Private Investigator whispered a solemn vow into her ear.

“There’s no where they can hide that I won’t find them.”

With that, Ms. Riley pulled away and nodded solemnly, before being lead away by the Detectives.

Nwosu shot Brennan a warning stare. She’d heard the whispered words.

 _Keep out of this_ , her eyes commanded, as both a police officer and a sentinel.

But Brennan didn’t give a shit anymore. No high level Sentinel could keep her from doing her duty to the tribe.

The Centre and its High Level thinking had brushed her aside, brushed all low levels aside for too long. They didn’t have a say anymore in what Brennan could and would do for her tribe. And Cindy was tribe. The shy mousy girl who’d shied away from her guide powers and whom Brennan had never met except in on a clod slab was tribe and No. One. Fucked. With. Brennan’s Tribe.

In the parking lot, as she patted her pockets for her car keys, Brennan felt a bulk in her jacket pocket. She reached in and pulled out a bunch of polaroids. They were the pictures Dr. Glass had been taking of the symbols that had been burned into Cindy’s skin. she must have slipped them in there during the kiss.

Brennan smiled, a sharp pulling of lips across teeth that often put the fear of God into the soldiers in her command, and started her car. She already knew where she had to go first.

No dragon flying high could ever stop the running of wolves.

 

 

 

 

 

Nuru – Swahili means born at Night

Nwosu- Discerning child

She and Ricardo just popped up out of nowhere. i’d planned for the asshole glenn and a centre goon but i like them. they’re a happy medium. Thanks to my co-worker Justine for having my back while i write and pretend to work.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Someone is killing Guides and no one seems to notice. It’s up to ex military PI and unbonded Sentinel Brennan Sheppard solve the case. With the aid of linguist / rare book restorer / hippie Guide M. Regina Carter-Mckay, the black sheep of the Famous Carter Mckays, they must find a killer before another Guide dies.

 

 

There was a warm hand at the back of her neck. It made her feel safe.

She’d made it to the LowFlyers Club and was making her way across the parking lot when she stumbled, the world shifting violently to the left. She hit the pavement on her hands and knees and found it difficult to breathe. All of the emotions she been keeping a tight lid on since the FFB and everything that had happened since then had burst their dam and were now running riot over her.

The rational part of her wondered why a marine war veteran who’d seen countless atrocities and come face to face with death more than once would come apart so thoroughly over the death of one missing girl.

None of that rationality stopped her from puking her guts out in the middle of the lot. And since she’d had nothing for the day except a half a pancake and two sips of coffee, there wasn’t much to puke up and her chest and stomach soon ached with the force of her dry heaving. Her vision greyed around the edges and tunneled and there was a rushing sound in her ears, a high pitched ringing that seemed to last forever.

She felt dizzy and detached from the world. She’d felt that way once before when she’d been too close to an IED that had been triggered by their convoy. She’d been thrown clear from her vehicle and had lay on the hard sun baked earth for a minute, disoriented and hurting, feeling like she’d been hit by a bus.

Her CO at the time had grabbed the back of her uniform and had dragged her to safety that day through a hail of gunfire, saving her life. The enemy had been laying in wait, peppering the survivors with bullets. Two good marines had died that day, one of them being that same CO who been hit in the thigh while dragging another soldier to safety. He’d bled out while they’d been waiting for extraction.

He’d been a good man and a good leader. A mundane, but knew well how to handle the sentinels and guides under his command. When she’d finally gotten her own squadron, she’d took everything he’d taught her about leadership and command and made it her own.

Finally the dry heaving was over and she sat weakly on her haunches, waiting for this roller coaster ride to end. She so wanted to get off now. There were people around her, she could feel them. Snippets and words penetrated the ringing in her ears.

_“Don’t touch…… sentinel…… distress”_

_“Someone…… Cylus……”_

_“… two blocks away….”_

The words seemed far away and she could hear a steady keening, like a wounded animal. It was gut wrenching to hear. After a few seconds, she realized with a start that the sound was coming from her.

She tried to wipe her mouth with the back of her hand and was amazed but how much her hand trembled, she could barely keep it still.

Suddenly there was a solid warmth to her side. An arm was around her, pulling her unto a broad solid chest. She struggled a bit before recognizing their scent. The Wolf of Mibu. Alpha. She sagged against him, boneless, and he wrapped his arms around her.

 

She didn’t remember much after that. Walking the halls, the Wolf carrying most if not all of her weight. Cylus’s office with its smell of books and soft leather overstuffed couch. Someone handed her a bottle of water to wash the taste of pancake and bile from her mouth. Then blissful descent into unconsciousness.

When she woke up she was lying on a firm warmth that was definitely not the overstuffed couch. She cracked an eye open and saw Cody’s chest just below her cheek. He was still in police uniform and his badge gleamed in the light. His breath was steady in sleep and she took a few seconds to listen to his heartbeat. It was steady and comforting and helped to silence the discord inside of her.

She lifted her head, looking around the room and saw a pair of warm eyes staring back at her. It was Dawn, Cody’s Sentinel, seated in on office chair, a magazine lay forgotten in her lap. She was dressed in her work clothes complete with white coat. She was the head of the R&D Department for the City’s biggest perfume company looked stunning in her purple pantsuit and stylishly cut lab coat.

They stared at each other for a few moments before Brennan realized that she lay snuggled in the arms of a bonded guide whose sentinel was staring right at them both. She quickly started to get up, only to have Cody’s arms wrap more tightly around her in sleep. She stopped her struggle when Dawn squatted next to the couch, smiled and gently pushed her back down, murmuring soothing words in a soft calm voice.

“How…” Brennan began, clearing her throat when her voice hitched, “How can you stand me touching him like this?”

Dawn smiled again and threaded her fingers gently though the brunette’s short hair.

“Aw honey, I knew from the moment I saw you and Cody together that you were a package deal. Don’t get me wrong, my guide and I had a long talk about it and what this would mean for us but I always knew that if I wanted him, I would have to take you too. And I really wanted him.”

Dawn winked.

“Not to mention how hot it makes me to think of that long weekend you shared. Yummm.”

Brennan gaped. “He told you about that?” she was mortified.

The petite sentinel laughed cheekily. “Cody tells me everything sweetheart, everything. That’s how I know I can trust him with you. Because I know that he is my Guide match and I’m his Sentinel and that we would never betray each other. You are my Tribe and my Shield Sister Brennan and you are always welcome.”

She felt tears sting behind her eyes and she turned into Cody’s warm chest.

_How can anyone want someone like her, someone so useless and weak… so broken inside she barely even registered as a sentinel? Much less a Shield Sister._

“Oh God…. Honey.” Dawn’s sorrowful moan cut through her thoughts and she realized that she’d done it again.  _I really need to stop saying this shit out loud_. She groaned silently.

Just then Cody jerked awake, startling them all. Within seconds Brennan was getting the stuffing hugged out of her while the guide had his mild freak out.

Soon she was sitting on the couch, sandwiched between Cody and Dawn. Cylus was back in his chair with the Wolf of Mibu leaning against the desk. She slowly told them about the crime scene and about her behavior in the lab. Shame flashed in her again, hot and stinging, and it was only when the wolf lay a hand on her knee that she looked up to meet his eyes.

“You stopped yourself. No one was hurt. You didn’t go for your gun even though you had it. You are stronger than you know.”

“I didn’t stop myself” She shook her head, “If Ricardo hadn’t used the Voice, I would have hurt somebody. I just don’t understand. I’ve seen people die before. I’ve seen Guides die in front of me when I was deployed. How could I lose it so bad for someone I’ve never even met?”

“You’ve lost men, yes” Cylus answered, “But that was when you were a soldier and for a soldier at war, loss is inevitable. Even your sentinel spirit knows that sometimes the tribe is culled in war. But this isn’t war. This is the first time since your discharge that someone you know, a guide in your tribe has died isn’t it?”

Brennan nodded, her mind racing. Cylus leaned forward, putting his arms on the desk.

“In fact, you’ve just realized that you have a new tribe. And that even though you never met her, Cindy was yours to protect.”

She swallowed hard and nodded again. Cody tightened his hold on her hand, giving her silent support.

The Wolf of Mibu spoke. “You’ve opened yourself up emotionally to having a new tribe and in your search for young Miss Riley, unconsciously attached tribe emotional connections to her as well. When you discovered her death, those emotional connections severed suddenly and the backwash shattered all of your mental and emotional barriers.”

“Yeah.” Cody admitted, “ I felt you go down hard”

Brennan looked at him, shocked. “What?”

“After the call, I was ordered back to the precinct.” He shrugged. “I could tell something wasn’t right. Just a feeling you know. It wasn’t until this afternoon that I was felt it. It was like someone had stabbed me in the heart. I dropped what I was doing and got out of there. I think I shouted something about guide business to the centre staff liaison and ran out of there like a bat out of hell.”

Brennan goggled. “Really?” she looked to Cylus for confirmation. He nodded.

“Sentinels and Guides from as far as four blocks away felt your distress and came running. We’ve had a bit of a time reassuring them all that you are well and making arrangements for those who left their jobs just as abruptly as young Cody here.”

“Huh” She couldn’t wrap her mind around that bit of news so she stowed it for later examination.

They got back to discussing the case, bringing everyone up to speed with the Cut Out Killer connection and Brennan produced the polaroids from her pocket. Cody rubbed her back reassuringly as they examined the markings that had been burned into the dead guides flesh.

“They must bee very important.” The Wolf of Mibu murmured. “To go to such lengths to disguise the markings after death. All of these were done before death, while the victim was alive. Killing may not even have been the goal of this but the result.”

“You mean that it wasn’t the death that was important but everything leading up to it?”

He nodded but Cylus continued.

“It’s almost ritualistic, the markings. And the state of the bodies after death, no bruising, sanitized, skin carefully cut out or burned off with acid etc. The way they were disposed of as well, different ways in different states, carefully so that no one would ever connect them.This one is meticulous, careful, patient. An older, educated person. Cody mentioned cases going back at least eight years?”

The guide nodded.

Cylus held a magnifying glass to the chest burns,

“This is beautiful work. Done by a very steady hand. From the various stages of healing I would say that this took place over days, if not weeks. This poor child may have been there for more if she hadn’t gotten away.”

“You’re say she escaped?” Dawn frowned.

“Oh, yes. The killer would never have let her go with all of this hard work laid bare upon her skin. They’ve been so careful up until now. No, my dear clever Cynthia gave them the slip. You will have to find out from Dr. Glass more details on how she died.”

Cylus looked at Brennan who nodded.

“If she was too weak to run far it means that the killer may be hiding somewhere in the doldrums and that gives you a very good lead.”

Brennan frowned and crossed her arms over her chest.

“Homicide told me to stay out of it.” She said.

She had no intention of letting that stop her but she had to let them know what the situation was. They all nodded in understanding. This was LowFlyers Business and would not leave this room.

Dawn ran a finger over the picture of the burn on the back of the neck, her brow furrowed in thought.

“I know this, damn it, where do I know this from?” she grumbled.

Cody took her hand and kissed it. “Calm down babe, let it come to you.”

“It was a couple years ago, during my last visit here. A friend of mine took me for a girl’s night and we ended up walking along the boardwalk. There was a store, a rare book store and there was a sign that said ‘palm reading’. The woman there, a latent guide, she had that symbol tattooed on the inside of her wrist.”

Brennan felt something inside her sit up, alert.

“Do you remember the store?” she asked.

“It was a small one, cozy almost crowded with books everywhere. It had a weird name. It didn’t make sense until she explained it… it was something with magic. Something with a P.”

“Perfect Magic?”

“Pesky, Pixie, Palatial, Papyrus, Paragraph, Paginal” Cody rattled off easily.

He blushed as he realized that they were all staring at him. “What?”

“Paginal?” The Wolf smirked.

“It means – like or pertaining to pages or pagination. Books? Pages? Get it?” He shrugged sheepishly, cheeks still stained pink.

Suddenly Dawn burst out “Portable Magic! That’s it!”

After that they adjourned, the Wolf of Mibu giving everyone their orders. Cody and Dawn were to go back to work and salvage what they could of the day, with Cody keeping an ear to the ground about the case. The Wolf and Cylus would try to find out what they could about the store and it’s owner as well as look into the symbols and what they could mean.

Brennan would be the one to check out the bookstore and its proprietor to see if they could be any help in finding where the symbols originated from.  _Or if she had a hand in putting them there_ , Brennan added privately.  _Everyone’s a suspect until they’re not_.

Another stop at home to shower and change and to hang up the borrowed dress that had been shoved into her bag like an old rag. She drained the carton of juice in her fridge and had a handful of salt crackers, not wanting to challenge her stomach just yet.

———————————–

It looked like every other store along the busy boardwalk. Small glass front with a large poster proclaiming Palm Reading. The door chimed sweetly and air inside was fresh and cool and smelled of old paper and sage. Books looked like they’d been placed haphazardly but Brennan quickly saw a method to the madness. There was a small counter with a cash register to one side and a small table with three chairs tucked into a nook at the back. It was a s cozy without being to crowded just as Dawn described.

Brennan was about to ring the door chime again when a voice greeted her from the back room. Soon enough a woman came out into the front of the store laden with a stack of heavy books. The brunette watched in awe as the woman maneuvered the stack that was higher than her head though the clutter of the store. It was only when she was almost to the front of the store that her foot caught on the edge of a box and she stumbled.

Brennan quickly leapt forward, bracing the woman’s elbow as she dropped the stack heavily unto the counter top. She was blonde and slim and she looked like a flower child with her loosely braided hair and flowing skirt. Brennan’s hand tingled where she was still gripping the blonde’s arm and she took a deep breath.

She shouldn’t have done that. She SHOULD NOT have done that. The blonde smelled like honey suckle and heaven and she stared at the oh so soft skin under her hand, her thumb pressed gently on the vein as it pulsed. She absently wondered what it would be like to run her tongue along that vein, to taste that creamy skin.

Someone cleared their throat and she snapped back to her self. She glanced up to apologize and promptly forgot how to speak.

There was only one thing she could think before she lost herself in fathomless blue eyes.

_Oh boy._

 


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Someone is killing Guides and no one seems to notice. It’s up to ex military PI and unbonded Sentinel Brennan Sheppard solve the case. With the aid of linguist / rare book restorer / hippie Guide M. Regina Carter-Mckay, the black sheep of the Famous Carter Mckays, they must find a killer before another Guide dies.

  
“Hey… hey”

A voice coaxed her from the blue.

“You with me? Good. Drink this.”

A chilled glass was pressed into her hands and she stared at it, the condensation running down the smooth surface unto her skin. Brennan blinked and suddenly the world was in Technicolor again, digital surround sound. She was seated at the small table she’d seen tucked away to the back of the store. It was empty save for an ornately carved wooden box and an elegant deep gold fringe tablecloth. She lost a few seconds running her hand along its finely crafted patterns, and absently took a sip of her drink.

Which she promptly choked on and almost spat out. She forced her self to swallow the bitter liquid.

“What the hell is this?” she gasped, scraping her tongue along her teeth.

“kǔdīng chá” came the reply “Bitter nail tea. It’s good for clearing the head and getting the blood going. Its caffeine free so that’s good for a sentinel on a zone out.”

“Zone out?” Brennan scoffed “I haven’t zoned out in well…. in ever I guess.”

A blonde eyebrow raised and she shrugged self-consciously.

Her skills had always been too low to spike much less cause a full zone out. She’d come close soon after she’d come online. Her parents had been quarreling especially loud as they always seemed too when the subject was her and she’d gone down to the pool to get away.

One minute she was staring at the sunlight on the water wishing they would just shut up shut up shut up and the next she was being lifted out of the pool, clasped in her father’s arms, her mother shrieking.

The twenty minutes it had taken the paramedics to come was the longest time her father had ever held her and she’d never wanted to leave his arms. He felt so strong and safe and every bit the big damn Sentinel hero the rest of the world saw him as. Brennan had listened to his heartbeat as it slowed and thumped steadily under her cheek and had been truly content.

Too soon the medics arrived and he’d pulled away, donning that cool and distant mask before he even got to his feet. He bluntly informed the medics of her low level status and frowned even harder when they informed him that this wasn’t even a full zone out but just a partial sensory spike and that it probably would never happen again. Without another word, he’d spun on his heel then and stalked inside, her mother following a few minutes later, leaving her alone and shivering on the cold tile.

They’d been right. It had never happened again. Until now.

She shook her head again. “I couldn’t have.”

“Oh, I guess the five minutes you spent staring into my eyes because you’ve taken up Eye Gazing and were trying to get a visualization of my past lives?”

“Huh?… What?” Brennan frowned. Confused.

Suddenly the blonde started to laugh, an easy breathy laugh that did naughty things to Brennan’s hindbrain.

Hastily shoving all those thoughts into a mental footlocker, she took the time to let her eyes travel over the other woman shamelessly. Long blonde hair, bright blue eyes that lit up when she laughed with that naughty crooked kissable mouth, soft creamy skin with a natural tan. Young, twenty something, athletic. Long flowing skirts and thin cotton top with strings of colourful beads and sandaled feet made her look like Flower Child Barbie, all she needed was flowers woven into her hair and a peace sign painted on her face.

Long legs tempted from under the skirt and a pair of breasts so perfect that Brennan just wanted to free them from their confinement, take them in her hands and su….

“You should have seen the look on your face.”

“Ugh?….” Brennan blinked and looked up to meet smiling eyes, she grimaced.  _Way to let the pretty lady know you only speak caveman. Geez._

“Nevermind” Flower Child shook her head, making hair fall out of her loose braid and into her face in a way that made her look utterly ravished. “What brings you to my humble store Sentinel?”

Brennan cleared her throat.

“Would you believe I’m here for a palm reading?”

“No, you’re not here for a good book either. You’ve lost someone close to you, haven’t you? Recently? It’s a bit of a mystery and you are looking for something to help you, something you don’t understand.”

Brennan half rose from her chair then slowly sat back down, instantly wary.

“What do you know?” she demanded.

“I know what you tell me Sentinel” the blonde raised her hands up as if in surrender. “Touch Empathy is my Guide gift. That’s how I do the palm reading. You were holding my arm when you zoned out…”

Brennan huffed.

“Ok Ok…. When you sensory spiked” the blonde continued.

“Don’t worry though, I didn’t get much. You are very controlled and I’m not that strong. Also I don’t usually pry without permission. You just startled me when you… you know, did that thing.”

She winked as she whispered the last part as if it were a treasured childhood secret.

“So you dig into people’s minds and tell them their secrets?” Brennan was a little freaked.

“I skim along the surface and give them a fresh perspective on things. Sometimes people need to hear from someone who is not as close as they are to their problems. I just tell them what I see so that they too can see. I don’t judge. “

The blonde shrugged. “Besides, it pays the bills to I can do what I really love.”

“And what’s that?”

“I’m a conservator and translator of rare books and languages. Not too much of a demand for us out there so we branch out, buy and sell rare books, translate documents and the odd old letter. Kinda fell into the whole palm reading thing.“

“How so?”

“Read a book on it.”

Brennan sat back in the chair, relaxing a little. A smile played on her lips.

“Cute” she deadpanned.

“I try” came the cheeky response. The blonde soon sobered and asked once again.

“What brings you to my store Sentinel?”

Brennan leaned across the table and gently clasped the blonde’s wrist, turning it over to reveal a beautiful and delicate tattoo inked into the smooth skin. She slowly ran her fingertips across the tattoo, eliciting a soft gasp from its owner. The pulse under her fingertips jumped and sped up and those beautiful breasts heaved as she inhaled deeply.

Brennan tore her eyes from that perfect chest and looked into that forget-me-not blue.

“Your tribe is in need Guide. There is a marauder at the gate. Will you give aid?”

The blonde took a few moments to look down at where their hands were intertwined on the table and slowly placed her other hand in, threading their fingers together. Her voice was trembled a little as she spoke.

“I am as the tribe needs me Sentinel.”

———————————————————-

They were once again near the front of the store. Brennan was fingering the photos in her pocket while the blonde closed the shop.

“it’s no trouble really Sentinel” the blonde explained, “These days are the slowest anyways. Wait ‘till summer and the tourists come in. they bring a lot of business with them”

Brennan leaned against the wall and smirked inwardly when blue eyes snagged on her, gave her a quick once over and darted away. She’d seen the way both men and women reacted when her father did it and so she’d tried it one day at a bar near boot camp and had gotten several eye-fucks, three phone numbers and had gotten her pussy eaten out in the parking lot behind the bar by an enthusiastic young man with a talent for holding his breath for a very long time. Good times had by all.

Since then she’d used it rarely. With great power comes great responsibility and she didn’t want that patented Sheppard Lean ™ writing checks that her ass had no intention of cashing.

“Hey, how come you keep calling me Sentinel?” she asked as the blonde locked the front door of the store and began leading her around the side of the building. There was a stairwell to the back and they started walking up.

“Why do you keep calling me Guide?” came the rejoinder.

“Because I don’t know your name.”

The blonde tapped a finger to the side of her nose. “Exactly. I also try not to call people ‘Hey You!’ and snapped my fingers at them. They seem to get offended when I do that.”

They came to a canopied threshold. The door was painted a deep red and the landing was covered in a mosaic of broken tile and sea glass that glittered in the soft light.

Brennan stuck out her hand, “Brennan Sheppard, Private Investigator, Sentinel.”

The threshold was close quarters and as the blonde turned, Brennan got a face full of hair that flashed paradise across the senses. The blonde smiled shyly and took Brennan’s hand with a firm but brief handshake.

“M. Regina Carter-Mckay, Rare Book Conservator, Linguist, Guide.”

 

 


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Someone is killing Guides and no one seems to notice. It’s up to ex military PI and unbonded Sentinel Brennan Sheppard solve the case. With the aid of linguist / rare book restorer / hippie Guide M. Regina Carter-Mckay, the black sheep of the Famous Carter Mckays, they must find a killer before another Guide dies.

Guide Regina  _“Call me Reggie, everyone does”_  Carter Mckay’s place was a jumble of contradictions. Her apartment was a mix of old and new books packed unto almost every flat surface, some lay open as if the reader had lost interest mid page and had left the book abandoned. Interspersed between the books was an eclectic collection of knick knacks from all over the world.

Wildly colourful hand woven Afghans and patchwork pillows were strewn over the plush and mismatched yet oddly comfortable furniture. Hand written letters and postcards written in various languages were tacked to a cork board with quickly jotted notes, numbers and affirmations. Below the cork board, on a painfully neat desk, sat a small silver laptop with an all-in-one scanner printer fax machine.

Art and pictures and framed certificates and quotes filled the walls side by side with family pictures. One of these pictures was of a serious looking couple standing with two blonde children. They were standing in front of a large white domed building with several more in the distance.

“Mauna Kea Observatory in Hawaii” Reggie spoke from where she was setting tea leaves to steep in hot water.

“We spent a year visiting the top ten observatories in the world. Chile, Australia, Spain, Puerto Rico, Wisconsin, India, heck, we even went to the South Pole. When I got back to school, no one believed me when I told them what I spent the year doing. I had to show them the articles in Modern Science Magazine as proof.”

She chuckled and offered Brennan a drink and she accepted, glad to get the taste of that nasty tea from her tongue.

“So your parents huh?”Brennan nodded at the picture then glanced about the room.

Reggie grinned. “Yeah, THE Carter-Mckays. The first sentinel and guide pair to man the Atlantis International Space Station. Been up there for six years now, blowing the science world’s collective mind every other Thursday. They’ve had their heads turned towards space even before they were matched at the Centre. My older brother’s bit of a science buff as well. He’s the head of GENAI Labs and the one who perfected the Artificial Gravity Generator that allowed for long term space exploration. ”

She’d come to stand next to brunette and it was all Brennan could do not to push her against the wall and run her tongue against the blonde’s neck.

She cleared her throat. “Twins?”

Reggie shook her head. “Nah, but were practically born nine months apart. Mother and Father wanted to get the whole procreation deal out of the way quickly. My brother and I were planned right down to the last genome to carry the Carter-Mckay Sentinel/ Guide/ Genius Legacy into the future.”

She shrugged.

“Too bad it didn’t take with us the same way. Samea got the brains and the High Level Guide skills and I got the affinity for languages, books and touch and go Guide abilities. And didn’t that go over like a lead balloon with my dad. HIS daughter- a student of Humanities, not even one of the ‘soft sciences’ like geology or botany. Soon after that they went into space and we haven’t talked that much since then.”

Brennan saw the slump in her shoulders and decided a subject change was in order. That and if they stood there long enough her hands would find their way into the other woman’s hair.

“Samea?”

“Mom named him after my Grandpa Samuel, it’s Arabic from the couple of year’s mom spent at KAUST. It means exalted, praised, sublime.”

“And what about you” Brennan asked as the blonde took the empty glass.

“What about me? Regina was Dad’s choice. He used to call me Queen Bee as a child when he was in a good mood.”

“And the M? as in M. Regina Carter Mckay?”

“That…” The blonde smirked. “…is a secret”

“Come on.” Brennan as she followed that laughing blonde into a room just off the kitchen area.

“Let’s just say my Dad was a fan of opera and leave it at that.”

The room they entered was small and very brightly lit. Reggie closed the door behind them and it sealed with a soft hiss. Compared to the cluttered outer apartment this seemed like a new world. The colours were crisp and clean and the air was fresh and filtered. Suddenly Brennan knew of what it reminded her.

“This is like the Iso-Room at the Centre” she breathed.

“Almost.” The blonde flipped on a weird contraption that looked like a light taped to a magnifying glass and put on a pair of gloves.

“It can be used for that purpose but I mainly use it as my clean room for really old books. Did you know that the humidity or dryness in the air, direct sunlight, cigarette smoke, even the oil on your fingertips can permanently damage the document being handled?“

Her hands waved as she spoke and Brennan found it utterly adorable. She wanted to push those slim hips up against the table and run her hands over the warm skin underneath that skirt until she …

“I’ve seen pictures from the forties where they used to smoke while they worked. Right over the priceless documents, can you believe that?”

The Guide laid a sheet of thin paper unto the desk and turned to the Sentinel and made a grabbing motion with her outstretched hand. Brennan handed her the polaroids and she quickly spread them out unto the paper.

Grabbing the stand magnifier the blonde studied the symbols, running her gloved fingertips along the curves and corners of the marks, changing the angle of the light often.

As she worked, Brennan sat in silence, her eyes roving hungrily over the figure before her. She ran her fingers through her hair and breathed out.  _What the heck is going on here? It’s all I can do to keep from jumping her bones._

She was confused to what this was. She’d felt sexual attraction for others before, she was no stranger to ‘lust at first sight’ but this was not like that. This was like slow deep slide into warmth and comfort. It was like coming home.

She dismissed that thought with a shake of her head. It couldn’t be that. She squashed that hope ruthlessly before it could bloom. Bonding just wasn’t in the cards for her, no matter how good the guide felt.

Soon enough the blonde motioned her closer. She’d rearranged the pictures in a pattern with the pictures of the neck on top, followed by the chest, wrists and thighs.

“So Doc…” Brennan drawled as she came to stand over the blonde’s shoulder. Her breathe hot against the blonde’s chilled skin. “…what’s it all mean?”

Reggie turned her head towards the brunette, bringing their faces close together, their lips just a kiss apart. A pink tongue darted out to moisten dry lips and someone groaned softly. Reggie broke away with a blush and Brennan shoved her fists into her jacket pockets and bit her lip, taking a small step back and ordering herself to  _cool it, marine._

Reggie repositioned the magnifier so they could both see the pattern up close. She explained to Brennan that the burn was not just one big symbol, but a collection of runes (old Germanic alphabets)  pieced together to form something far more complex. She pointed to one of the symbols.

“See here, this one is Uruz which can mean physical strength and speed, untamed potential but can also mean Sexual desire, masculine potency. When used in reverse, it can mean brutality, rashness, callousness and violence. They don’t mean any one thing, but they work together to give the formation meaning. Here’s Fehu- Energy, foresight, fertility, creation/ destruction and Kenaz-  vital fire of life, fire of transformation and regeneration.”

She brushed her fingertips over her wrist with a frown, pulling down the plastic of the glove to see the same symbol tattooed there.

“The vital fire of life” Brennan repeated softly.

After a moment the blonde quickly pulled the glove back up and turned back to the pictures.

“I don’t understand these formations though… “ she bent closer. “ they’re all mixed up, it’s very strange. There’s some Elder FuthHark, Sabaean, and even Messapic runes here. And they’re using different formations on the different parts of the body. What the bloody hell are they trying to do?”

“I take it that these are non-mixy?”Brennan asked.

“Very non- mixy” the blonde confirmed. She tilted her head suddenly.

“Huh”

Brennan froze at the sound. Even the sentinel in her cocked an ear.

“I’ve seen this once before but where where where……” the blonde snapped her fingers and rushed out the room and into the cluttered living space.

Brennan could only  shut the door behind her with a snick hiss and watch as the guide reached for, flipped through and discarded book after book, journal after journal. She sprung up with a cry of triumph and brought a magazine over to Brennan.

“Here” she pointed to a particular article of an expedition to the home of a remote tribe in the Baltic States. The researchers had come across women and men with intricately carved rune formations on their face, chest and back. Local folklore told tales of ancient rituals that gave the bearers special powers in times of crisis.

The runes were slightly different, so were the locations and the skin was carved not burned. But the formations, and the one on the chest seemed too similar to what was done to Cindy. The woman in the picture had her shirt open, her milky skin as pale as Cindy’s carved in an elaborate design that must have taken days if not weeks to complete. The difference was that she was alive and well whereas Cindy’s life had been ripped away, leaving the intricate carving behind like a beautiful and grotesque art.

Brenna’s dark musings were broken when warm fingers intertwined with hers and she looked up into that forget-me-not blue.

“Don’t despair Sentinel, we’ll figure this out.”

An emotion surged in her and she brought their lips together in a sweet crush. A hand cupped the guide’s head and the other snaked beneath her cotton top. Reggie let out a whimper and parted her lips and Brennan deepened the kiss, bringing their bodies flush against each other. She could feel the Guide’s gloved hands clutching at her jacket.

Soon they broke apart for air and they panted, foreheads touching. Brennan felt like she was on fire, every nerve tingling and on end. She tried to speak, to say something… anything about what was happening between them but she was hushed by a finger on her lips.

Reggie had ripped the gloves off and threw them on the couch. She threaded her fingers though the brunette’s and tugged her forward. Her skin was flushed and rosy pink and her eyes were dilated with want. Brennan could hear her own heart pounding, her blood racing. Where their skin touched along their fingertips, emotions sparked like lightning.

She let the blonde tug her into the bedroom. Unlike the living room, it was unfurnished except for the large bed. Black out curtains were drawn to one side, letting the flickering light of a nearby neon sign paint the shadowed room red through the blinds.

They stood at the side of the bed facing each other. Reggie reached up to cup Brennan’s cheek and the brunette caught her wrist, kissing the tattoo there then pulled her in for a kiss on the lips. Her hand slid down to cup that perfect ass, pulling the blonde closer, feeling the soft push of her breasts- burying her nose in the guide’s neck- smelling the sweet musk of her body.

They broke apart again, this time Brennan quickly shucked her jacket and boots, stuffing her socks into the boots. She was in the middle of slipping out of her jeans when Reggie peeled off her top and reached back to unhook her bra. Never taking her eyes off of inch after inch of flesh being exposed, Brennan almost tripped trying to get her pants the rest of the way off.

Sitting heavily on the bed, she stared as the guide slipped off the flowing skirt to pool at her feet. She gently guided the blonde to stand between her legs and ran her hands up and down the beautiful trembling body. She took one of the hardened nipples into her mouth and suckled it, teasing it with her tongue, enjoying the sharp intake of breath that resulted.

Her other hand reached up to cup the other breast, her thumb playing with the sensitive flesh. She locked eyes with the blonde and bit gently on the nipple, sucking at it in apology when the blonde flung her head back with a cry, her two hands buried in the brunette’s hair. She gave the other nipple similar treatment and by the end Reggie’s was weak at the knees and moaning constantly.

With a quick move she learned in the military, Reggie was laying on the bed beneath her while Brennan straddled her thighs. She made quick work of her own top and bra and pressed her body flush against her lover’s. From Reggie’s lips to her breasts to her stomach, Brennan’s hands explored followed closely by her tongue.

From the hollow of the neck to under the breasts to the waist line of the flimsy lace panties, she tasted and remembered it all. She delighted in the places she found that would make the guide squeal or laugh or buck up off of the bed.

Using only her index fingers she slowly peeled the damp lace panties from tanned hips and legs. Reggie was bare down there, hot and wet and Brennan pressed a kiss to the top of her clitoris, making the blonde moan and tremble.  She braced the blonde’s hips and quickly and gently scraped the tips of her teeth against the sensitive flesh.

The blonde wailed and almost bucked her off and Brennan grinned.  _ninmu ryoukai_

The blonde’s pussy was hot and wet against her tongue as she sucked, nipped and hummed the guide into wanton writhing. Using her tongue and teeth on the clit, she pressed two fingers into that pulsing heat and hooked them, hitting that g-pot with military accuracy.

A cry seemed to tear itself from deep within the blonde as her body shook with the force of her orgasm, the tight heat around Brennan’s fingers spasming and clenching. She kept licking and sucking as the tremors subsided, kissing her way up the blonde’s body.

She wiped her face on her discarded vest and kissed the blonde deeply. Arms came up to wrap around her and she felt something deep inside her snap into place. Reggie peppered kisses along the brunette’s jaw and she tugged at Brennan’s panties with a grin and a raised eyebrow.

The sentinel rolled on to her back and smiled as the guide didn’t take off the panties but snaked her hand beneath them. Two fingers pressed into her and she groaned. A hot mouth and tongue latched unto her nipple and it was her turn now to try not to buck off the bed.

A third finger joined the first two and she felt so full as they began to move

“Fu…fuck” she breathed.

“You like that” the guide whispered against the wet nipple, chilling it and making her shiver. “I can tell you like that. You open up to me so well, all your wants and needs are right on the surface for me to discover. I know everything you want baby, and I’m going to give it all to you.”

The guide stole her breath with a brutal kiss, her fingers fucking Brennan’s pussy deeper and harder. The sentinel clung to the other woman, her body arching with the overwhelming pleasure. She felt tight along her skin, everything she’d kept from her other lovers, every dirty fantasy that she kept hidden from her military mind, her family conditioning, from her sentinel self, was laid bare before this woman, this guide.

That this woman could know her so deeply, could know instinctively what she wanted, no, what she needed terrified her. Tears sprang to her eyes as she blonde whispered sweet  nothings to calm her interspersed with nips at her neck and soft orders to take her fucking like a good little slut.

A fourth finger joined the other in her and soon after she arched up, scream stuck in her throat as her orgasm seemed wrenched from her body. Waves of pleasure rolled over her that seemed to last forever but it wasn’t just her pleasure alone. There was another presence, another connected to her that created a kind of feedback loop between them.

She came back to awareness with the blonde peeling off her wet panties and wiping her down with a damp cloth. She opened her arms and the guide fell into them, arms and legs tangling together with surprising familiarity. The blonde’s breath soon evened out and Brennan lay awake for a while, watching the red neon play across their bare skin and feeling more at home than she’d ever felt anywhere else.

Within a few minutes she joined her lover in sleep.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sorry for the long delay. someone broke in my place and stole my laptop. After i got over my heartbreak, i got back to writing. good thing i emailed the story to myself. lol

anyway, who told me i should write smut at work. *whew* i had to excuse myself to the bathroom after. i’m getting a temp computer for home today to this weekend should see more chapters i hope.

this is my first femslash smut and my first smut in a long time. please be gentle.

 


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Someone is killing Guides and no one seems to notice. It’s up to ex military PI and unbonded Sentinel Brennan Sheppard solve the case. With the aid of linguist / rare book restorer / hippie Guide M. Regina Carter-Mckay, the black sheep of the Famous Carter Mckays, they must find a killer before another Guide dies.

Brennan awoke with an armful of beautiful guide and a shit-eating grin on her face. The sun had just risen and the beams of light played across their naked bodies like fingertips. Her own light touching soon led to sleepy kisses then hotter kisses and scorching hot touching that left them both panting.

Brennan squinted at her cell and swore softly

“I gotta go” she gave the blonde a lingering kiss. “Duty calls”

She grabbed her underwear and jeans and slipped into the bath room. After her morning ablutions she was contemplating either brushing her teeth with her finger and some toothpaste or gargling when the blonde guide plastered her naked body to Brennan’s from behind.

“There’s a spare toothbrush in the drawer.”

Brennan opened said drawer and searched around for her quarry. With a small grunt of triumph she pulled out the plastic case and cracked it open.

“You got a lot of sentinel friendly stuff here Guide” she remarked, waving a hand at the various products along the counter.

Reggie smiled and nuzzled her neck. “I’ve been living Bond Ready since I was twelve. I figured it would make more sense to live like this than to change my whole way of living suddenly. We McKays don’t do change well unless it has to do with science and technology and I didn’t want my sentinel to suffer when I eventually met him, or in this case… her.”

Brennan froze, toothbrush hanging from her foamy mouth. “Uh…about that”

Two minutes later she was standing with an armful of hastily grabbed clothes, staring across the kitchen counter at a very pissed off guide.

“What do you mean we didn’t bond?” the blonde hissed. She waved her hand between them. “I can feel it. It’s real, this thing between us. Fuck, I can see it.”

“What?”

“It’s part of my Guide aspect. I can see bonds, or their physical manifestations anyway. Like threads that join Sentinel and Guide. they’re different colour too. Ours is a kind of blue and gold and red and whitish, I mean it keeps shifting and it’s kinda faint but it’s there. Its definitely there.. I can also see spirit animals and well… other things too but that’s not important right now.”

She walked around the counter and poked Brennan in the chest.

“The only thing that matters is that You. Are. My. Sentinel. and I. am. Your. Guide. Did last might mean nothing? Is this the kind of thing you do with random Guides?”

Brennan rubbed her chest with a grimace. “ No. “  she caught the blonde’s hand before she could poke her again and pulled her closer.

“No” she repeated, “I don’t do this… I mean, not like this. It’s just that they said…. I would never hurt a Guide like that. I’m so sorry.”

Reggie stopped struggling in her grasp and frowned. “Who said? What have ‘they’ been saying?”

She took the brunette’s gear and dropped it into a nearby chair, leaving her in her jeans and bra while Reggie wore only an oversized blue and black shark themed Rimouski Oceanic Hockey Jersey.

Brennan sighed and bowed her head, her cheeks burning in shame. “The Centre…when I was … when they told me my level, the Doctor there said that I was so low, I would probably never come online. That I… I was too feeble…too broken to be of any use to a Guide. That I would detrimentally harm any Guide who tried to bond with me. How can I do that to someone else? Guides are precious to any tribe.

She squeezed her eyes shut. “How could I live with myself as a Sentinel if I did that?”

She waited for the blonde to tell her to leave. To tell her that she was useless after all and kick her out. What she didn’t expect was for the blonde guide to start cursing a blue streak that ranged from English to French to Czech and sampled other languages Brennan couldn’t even begin to recognize.  _And she’d been in the Navy._

Finally the blonde boiled it all down to one word.

“Bullshit” she caught Brennan’s surprised gaze. “Bull. Shit.”

She held the brunette’s chin gently so that she could not look away.

“The Centre’s a bunch of assholes who couldn’t find their dicks in the dark with a flashlight and GPS. How old were you when they told you that shit?”

“Sixteen”

“SIX-fucking- TEEN?” the Guide gaped. “You were just a kid! They couldn’t make that judgment at that age. The tests aren’t 100% accurate, more like 60% at most. There are so many factors that we haven’t even discovered much less can even see much less quantify and interpret. What kind of racket are they running up there?”

The blonde was pacing now. Brennan could only watch in awed silence the blonde’s ire flushed through her like a wave. Brennan’s mind smashed brakes _. … the fuck?  I’m feeling her anger. I’m actually feeling what she feels through…. Oh God._

Brennan felt her knees go weak and she sank into one of the apartment’s plush yet mismatched chairs.  Panic warred with what she realized was hope in her gut as she put her head between her knees and breathed deeply through her nose.  A cool hand touched the back of her heated neck and she shuddered at the warmth and velvet comfort that surged along her nerves.

“You know how I know you not broken?” Reggie’s voice was calm and soothed the hysterics that were pressing against in Brennan’s chest. She whimpered as the blonde continued.

“I can see spirit animals, no matter how high or low, every Sentinel and Guide has one. And so do you”

Brennan shook her head but the blond pressed on.

“They’re hard to see sometimes. Your is the hardest but I can see flashes of white fur…”

Brennan shook her head,  _no…don’t listen_.

“…of sharp teeth and claws”

Panic spiked through the brunette’s chest. She wanted to speak …to tell the guide to stop talking.  Brennan’s Sentinel spirit rose within her, coiled and waiting to strike.

“I can feel how restless they are…”

She needed to stop talking  _right now_.

“They’re growling, angry and low.”

The sentinel in her surged forth, battering against her shields.

“They’re howling.”

And the sentinel howled with them.  
——————————————————————  
Brennan was six, ice cream in one hand and her grandfather’s hand in the other. It was sunny and she was happy that she had her grandfather all to herself. Her parents were at home with her baby brother and for once her grandpa didn’t have to work or go to boring meetings with boring old grownups. She looked up at him and smiled and he smiled back.

Then the world exploded into noise and squealing tyres, crunching dirt and men yelling. She screamed and fell to the ground and she heard her grandpa yelling and the sound of flesh hitting flesh. A rough hand grabbed the back of her dress and she was being dragged across rough asphault, skinning her knees as she left her melting ice cream and a shoe behind.

A hard hand slapped across her face, stunning her into silence and when she craned her neck she could see glimpses of her grandfather laying on the ground, a man shrouded in shadow standing  over him. The shadow man raised a hand to her grandpa and the six year old felt something inside her snap and shatter, her vision going white.

Her ears thundered with deafening growls and the startled then pained cries of men as she made herself small against the ground. All she wanted was for the bad men to go away, for her grandpa to come and get her and hold her. She screamed and screamed and the men screamed and screamed in terror as an awful howling filled the air.

The white eventually faded and she found herself in her grandpa’s arms, being rocked gently. He was talking softly to her, his tears falling into her hair.  _Little warrior_ , he called her,  _wunderkind_ , over and over as sirens wailed in the distance.

She felt a rough tongue against her cheek, soft white fur under her palms. So comforting, it felt like home. Her grandfather sat stiff and unmoving.

 _Make them hide_ , he whispered to her urgently.  _Before the others come. They wouldn’t understand. Hide them away._

She didn’t want to them to hide but he insisted.  _If you don’t hide they will take you away, you would never see your family again. Your mama and papa, your brother, me. They would take you from us._

She didn’t want that. She pushed the fur away.  _Go. Hide_. But they wouldn’t, they wanted to stay at her side. It hurt but she pushed harder.  _Go away now. I don’t want them to take me away_.

It was painful, so painful but she made it all go away, made it hide itself away and never come out. made herself block off the pain, to build a wall around what hurt so much.

The sirens were closer now,  so close. Her grandpa said that she had to promise not to tell anyone what happened. Not even her parents, not even her brother.  _No one must ever know_. _Promise me._

 _I promise, Grandpa_. As she buried the memory, deep. So deep it would never come back. She buried that part of herself so deep and never thought about it again.

_I promise Grandpa._

————————————————————-

“Holy Fuck”

Brennan grimaced as she came to. This blacking out thing was getting old , real fast. She was a marine for crap’s sake, she was made of sterner stuff. She blinked her vision clear and tried to get up but her guide’s arms held her down. She stilled.

“Reg? what’s wrong?”

The Guide… no, HER Guide tightened her hold and a fierce joy blossomed in Brennan. Her Guide’s voice was breathless as she repeated her earlier words.

“Holy Fuck”

Now the sentinel knew there was something wrong. She twisted around in the embrace and froze, her eyes snagging on what had the blonde in shock. There, among the stacks of books and plush yet mismatched furniture sat a great white wolf. And Brennan was talking Princess Mononoke , size of a pony, big. What had her blinking and rubbing her eyes in shock was the second wolf that sat next to the first.

“There’s….” she began.

“…two.” Reggie whimpered.

One of the massive wolves yawned, revealing a maw of wickedly sharp teeth as the other groomed itself. Brennan found her hand stretching towards the great wolves, hesitating as her guide eeped.

The massive beasts sat almost unnaturally still as her hand sunk into that pure white fur. A rough tongue licked the skin of her arm and the pressure that had been building in her released, blowing through all the blocks she’d placed when she was just a child.

With a cry she threw herself at the wolves, sobbing as she begged them to forgive her. That she was so sorry that she’d sent them away for so long. That she’d left them alone. That she had forgotten about them.  _Forgive me_ ,  _please_.

One of the wolves began to lick her shoulder, the other crawling forward to rest its large head in her lap. Then they started to growl, a deep vibrating rumble that vibrated to her very bones and she knew that she was forgiven.

She slowly sat up wiping her eyes as she ran her fingers through the soft fur behind the wolves’ ears. She turned around and smiled sweetly at her guide and found her staring at all three of them with a look of wonder. The sentinel held out her hand and the guide took it and allowed herself to be pulled to kneel next to the brunette.

Carefully Brennan guided the blonde’s hand into the soft spotless fur, feeling the muscles of the massive chest as it rose and fell with each breath.

“Magnificent” the Guide breathed and leaned forward to snag Brennan’s lips in a scorching kiss. As they parted she threw up her hands with a carefree laugh.

“Magnificent!”

Brennan pulled her in for another kiss and as they broke apart with matching grins, Brennan winked mischievously.

“I showed you mine now you show me yours?”

It was now Reggie’s turn to freeze. “Um…. about that?”

 

—————————————————–

 

“What do you mean you can’t?” Brennan asked incredulously. “What the hell woman?”

Reggie had stalked into the kitchen and was putting tea things together noisily, the cups and spoons clinking and clanking together.

“It’s complicated.”  The blonde grimaced.

Brennan felt her jaw drop “Complicated?….. Complicated? My life is complicated, the past two days have been complicated”

She gestured to the two large white wolves that lounged just beyond the kitchen counter. “That’s complicated. I can HANDLE complicated.”

“What if I tell you and you freak out? I mean, just this morning you were dead sure that we weren’t bonded. It’s still pretty thin. What if you decide to break it? What do I do then? Tell me?”

The blonde’s voice got higher and higher as she spoke, panic seeping into her words.

Brennan spun the guide around to face her, bracing her hands on guide’s arms.

“Hey. Listen to me” she said solemnly. “I’ve spent roughly half my life believing that I would never bond. That I was too broken for any guide to want me. I thought that I had let that dream die forever. Hell, I didn’t even think I was strong enough for a spirit animal. You are my miracle. Trust me, you can tell me anything and I’ll still be on you like white on rice.”

She pulled the blonde to her and buried her face in the guide’s neck, biting that sensitive junction hard enough to mark but not enough to bleed. Reggie stiffened as if shocked and a cry tore itself from her throat.

Brennan ran her tongue along the claim mark and growled.

“You are mine. You are Tribe. Nothing you can do will make me forsake you.”

Answering growls came from her brothers in the living room and she knew in her bones that they were with her ’till the end of the line. She held her guide close until her trembling stopped and lifted her chin with a finger to kiss her softly.

“Tell me Regina… show me” she whispered against soft lips.

Her Guide nodded slowly and suddenly the air was filled with the thrill of birdsong and flame.

It was at this point that Brennan’s higher brain functions gave a rasping wheeze and fell over… dead.

Clear bright eyes looked at the sentinel with mix of bemusement and smugness. Lustrous red plumes, veined with orange and gold, rustled and fluttered up the slender body to the graceful neck and head crested with vibrant gold and orange. The jeweled beak clicked and chattered as if in laughter.

“I.. I..Is that a…?” Brennan stammered, whispering as if the vision before her would disappear if she spoke to loud.

“yup”

“I thought they were… you know, mythical?”

“yup”

“Is she… laughing at me?”

A sigh. “yup”

Brennan watched what could only be described as an honest- to-God Pheonix, clattered daintily across Reggie’s kitchen counter _. A frikkin’ Pheonix_.

“Okay” she breathed. “That’s complicated.”

“yup”

 

 

 

 

 

*runs away before readers start throwing tomatoes, rubbing hands together and cackling evilly*


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Someone is killing Guides and no one seems to notice. It’s up to ex military PI and unbonded Sentinel Brennan Sheppard solve the case. With the aid of linguist / rare book restorer / hippie Guide M. Regina Carter-Mckay, the black sheep of the Famous Carter Mckays, they must find a killer before another Guide dies.

Brennan glanced at her phone as it warbled against the reclaimed wood coffee table. Dr. Glass again with a call me request. Regina was in her clean room scanning the photos and writing up notes and loose translations. She holstered her gun and shrugged on her jacket, smiling as her guide’s spirit animal strutted primly along the back of one of her wolves.

She ran a hand through her hair and shrugged helplessly. She’d never heard of someone having two spirit animals before. Hell, she’d never heard of someone having a mythical animal before either. But before her stood a phoenix, a frikkin’ phoenix in the flesh. She sat heavily in the couch and held her head in her hands. She had two choices- she could either freak out and run screaming for the hills or she could adapt and finally have a chance at getting everything she’d ever dreamed of.

So she’d roll with the punches. She was Marine, she seen things go FUBAR more times than she could count and she’d just gotten back up, spit out blood and kept going.

A growl made her look up.

One of the wolves was playfully snapping at the phoenix, large sharp teeth just missing vibrant red feathers. The jeweled beak darted out to peck at the massive white head and the wolf let out a high-pitched whelp. The other wolf chuffed as if in laughter and the game began again.

“No one believed me when I told them”

Reggie was leaning against the doorway, envelope in hand. She passed it to Brennan and knelt in front of the couch, her hands running gently down the firebird’s slender neck. The animal preened and nuzzled its head against the guide’s chin with soft cooing thrills.

“My first memory in the crib was of red feathers. My first word was ‘Birdie’. I thought it was my very own imaginary friend. I thought everyone had them. That people walked around all day with cool animal friends all the time. It wasn’t till I was in Guide Prep class that I understood that she was my Spirit Animal. I scoured the internet trying to figure out what kind of bird she was, what species.”

“The first time I told my mother she gave me this look, I know it now to be fond exasperation. My Dad told me to stop playing make believe and being ashamed of my spirit animal was childish and immature and that was no reason to lie about it. They never believed me, not matter what I said. Eventually it got so bad that they sent to a Centre Conservatorship for ‘treatment’. I was eight.”

Brennan wanted to reach for her guide to comfort her but she stopped just short of touching her bare shoulder. To touch her was to break the spell and she wanted to hear it all-to know what the blonde had endured.

The guide’s voice was quiet as she ran her fingers through white fur and one of the wolves shuffled forward to rest its head on her thigh. She bent down to kiss the animal’s head and Brennan felt a burst of warmth bloom in her chest.

“My brother Samea, could see her too. We would often play together as children, me and my Pheonix, him and his Pine Marten. That day the centre came to take me away I begged him to tell them, just tell them. He was standing there with my parents and he just looked at me with utter disgust and said that I was lying and I’d made it all up to pull my parents attention away from him.”

The guide flung her arms around the cooing bird and cradled it close to her chest. Brennan slid off the couch to sit next to her guide, pushing all the love and comfort she could through the bond. The blonde sagged against her and the phoenix blinked a baleful eye at the brunette.

“I was devastated for a long time but I’m not a Carter –Mckay for nothing. I learned soon enough what I needed to do to get out of there. What I needed to say to make them think I was normal. That I’d be less of a freak if I told them I couldn’t see my spirit animal at all. That I’d made it all up to get attention just like they said. They practically tripped over themselves in relief, the centre, my parents, everyone wanted to believe that. Because the alternative was unacceptable.”

The blonde nuzzled the red gold feathered crest.

“But I knew the truth, and this one knew that I would never forsake her.”

She released the bird who hopped back unto the second wolf’s back and it was the other wolf’s turn to chuff with amusement when the bird perched itself upon the massive head and refused to be dislodged.

“After that things were never the same with my family. I spent a lot of time after that with family friends and other relatives. When I discovered my love for words instead of numbers, well, that was the straw that broke the camel’s back. My parent’s just drifted away and my brother followed with them. It’s not that they hated me or were angry, it’s just that they seemed to lose all interest in me and I have to admit that that is what hurt most of all.”

Brennan kissed her guide’s forehead and tucked the blonde’s face into her neck. She wanted to be angry at Reggie’s parents but she knew all too well that family could love you but not like you very much. And sometimes family didn’t even really love you at all.

Parents were human and just as fallible and sometimes they were fucked up and sometimes they fucked up their kids. In the end it wasn’t blood that made Kin, it was tribe that made Kin. Those people who earned their place at your side with their loyalty and love.

She would make sure that her guide would forever have her loyalty and love.

Her phone chirped again, she glanced at it. Dr. Glass again.

“I really have to go now.”

She reluctantly released her guide and stood, offering a hand to pull the other woman to her feet. Reggie indicated to the envelope and Brennan slipped it into her jacket pocket.

“I have a few sources to mine. I’ll do that when I get to the store. See you tonight?”

The guide bit her lip shyly.

Brenna smiled and kissed those abused lips.

“Wild horses, baby”

 

———————————————————

Driving was a different experience for her now. The wolves were too big to fit in her non descript sedan and when she broached the subject of shrinking, just for a while, they gave her such a stink eye she yielded immediately. So in the end she had to contend with two white wolves ghosting in and out of traffic.

After the about the fifth heart attack threat she cottoned on to the fact that they were invisible to everyone else and could run around, jump over and even glide through all obstacles in their path.

The morgue parking lot was surprisingly empty so she nabbed a parking space near the entrance and hurried in from the sweltering heat. The air conditioning was a blessed relief as she stood in the empty hallway with her wolf companions. After a brief discussion that consisted of growls and glares she was fairly satisfied that the wolves would keep a low profile, for now anyways.

“Whatcha got for me Doc?”

The redhead glanced over her should from where she was looking at an x-ray and smiled.

“Brennan, how are you?”

The question was so genuine that it made the brunette pause. “I’m good” she admitted softly, making the pathologist smile.

She led the sentinel into her office and handed her a thick file.

“These are eyes only, mind you. Nwosu would have my ass over a spit if she knew I was showing you this” she frowned when Brennan didn’t immediately reply.

“What’s happened? Usually you would be commenting on ‘what a nice ass’ I have for roasting or some other quick remark. What’s changed for you?”

Brennan blushed prettily and Benandine’s eye went wide.

“I’ve met someone” she admitted. “My Guide.”

To her dismay, the redhead let out a loud squeal and glomped the stunned sentinel, babbling and laughing as she bounced happily. She finally calmed after a few minutes and made Brennan give her a short recap of recent events, wrangling a promise to get the fuller, juicier version at a later date.

Brennan spent the next few minutes reading the report. Cindy had been bound for long periods of time, the marks on her ankles showed various stages of healing. She’d been well fed with little weight loss. Her skin was paler than her picture, meaning there wasn’t much direct sunlight where she’d been held. Her skin showed signs of irritation under the bruises, some kind of chemical irritant.

The bruises. Brennan’s eyes could not help but devour every bruise, every mark on that pale skin. For such violence to be perpetrated against someone so young, so frail seemed sickening. At least they were all fresh, no evidence showing she’d been beaten before the day she died. With the rape as well, no evidence of it being more than a one-time thing.

Brennan wondered what had changed. Cindy had been seemingly unharmed for weeks, except for the burn marks. The brutal rape and beating seemed so unlike the profile.

Then she recalled the beautiful blonde adonnis Brenandine had previously shown her the case file for. He had been beaten very badly as well. And his dump had not been as careful and meticulous as others that had been found.

Maybe after the burns were complete, the killer became enraged for some reason. Thus the violence.

She continued to read.

Under Cindy’s feet had been embedded with dirt and blood and glass from her run through the Doldrums. There was also a fine dust of

“Phosphorus Pentasulfide?” she asked the redhead. Dr. Glass stood.

“Come with me. You need to see this”

Brennan followed her to the body drawers and watched as she pulled Cindy’s tray out. she quickly uncovered the slashed feet and flicked a light switch on the wall.

Under the blue glow of ultraviolet light, the soles of the dead girl’s feet seemed to glow pink. The redhead uncovered one of the hands and at the fingertips and under the nails traces of day-glo pink could be seen.

Soon Cindy was back in her drawer and they back in the office.

“The Tox-screen came back with traces of Parathion. It’s used in insecticides and is considered a hazardous chemical. It would be banned in the US but cheaper safer ways were discovered so it fell out of use on its own.”

Dr. Glass tapped a picture of the irritation on the pale skin.

“Parathion is a cholinesterase inhibitor. It generally disrupts the nervous system and can be absorbed via skin. It is rapidly metabolized to Paraoxon and exposure can result in headaches, convulsions, abdominal pain, unconsciousness, tremors and finally lung-edema.

If she’d been exposed to this, even small amounts for a long period of time then she would have died whether or not she escaped. It would have attacked her nerves, her extremities would have been numb. It would have affected her tongue and her ability to speak. That she was able to escape and be found was a miracle.”

Brennan felt a fierce sense of pride on Cindy’s behalf. She was a fighter, right until the end.

“The Doldrums used to be industrial right?” She mused. “That means whatever business made insecticide using Parathion would leave traces in the building right?”

The redhead nodded. “Enough so that Cindy would get it on her feet and hands. Enough to kill her after a period of time. There won’t be very many of those.”

“It’s still finding a needle in a haystack but now the stack is considerably smaller. Thanks Doc”

Brennan pressed a quick kiss to the redhead’s cheek, grinning as she blushed.

“Don’t think you’re getting away from telling me everything. You owe me a lunch and girl talk Marine.”

“Will do Green Eyes.” Brennan winked as she fled the lab.

 

—————————————————————-

Slipping in to see Cody without alerting the S/G pair in Homicide was like infiltration training from boot camp, simpler than she thought it would be. I guess they think any interloper in here would already be in custody.

It was just her luck that the large Guide was taking a shift in Records and was staring intently at a complex looking spreadsheet when she eased the door closed. She let it close with a soft snap that made the man turn around.

“Shep?” he tilted his head. “Something’s different. And don’t give me that look. I know these things remember?”

She smiled and pulled a chair forward to sit on it backward, hugging the cushioned back.

“Oh, just the usual.” She droned with a straight face. “Went to the shop. It’s named Portable Magic by the way, after Stephen King’s quote ‘Books are uniquely portable magic’. Met with this Guide. Her name’s Regina. Got the symbols recognized as Runes and partial translation. Bonded with same guide. Found out I have spirit animals. Talked with Dr. Glass at the morgue. Found out that Cindy might have been kept somewhere that made or housed Phosphorus Pentasulfide or Parathion. Came to you to figure out which buildings those could be so we can narrow the search grid. So, you know. Nothing much”

She shrugged, struggling to keep a straight face as Cody went from serious to shocked to gobsmacked.

“Bonded?” he squeaked and Brennan had to cover her mouth to keep from laughing too hard.

She nodded. “Yeah. I found her Cody. The one you said was waiting for me. I found her at last.”

With a loud whoop he had her in his arms and spun her around, laughing and crying at the same time. Brennan found herself tearing up and soon they were hugging tightly and crying like big babies. He kissed her soundly on the mouth and after a while, let her go, wiping his eyes and grinning like loon.

“Talk to me.” He ordered.

They spent the next twenty minutes talking and giggling like crushing schoolgirl’s as she gave the hot and juicy details of what happened since they last saw each other and they both relished every minute of it. Twice they had to freeze as they heard steps and voices in the hall beyond the door but the sounds always faded and they put their heads together, whispering and stifling laughter.

“Wait a minute” Cody frowned.”You said spirit animals, as in plural.”

“Give the man a prize.” She teased, “Now caught that one huh?”

She took his hand and let her sentinel essence surge forth. His guide spirit responded and she dug her fingers into thick white fur. A sharp intake of breath told her that he could see the wolves as they now filled the small records area almost by half with their massive bodies.

“Guide of my Tribe, I want you to meet my Wolf Brothers. Boys, this is my Pack Brother Cody, Guide of my Tribe.”

One of the wolves came forward to sniff at the man’s unmoving hand, then licked it. The other then came forward to do the same and Brennan felt a fierce sense of affection and loyalty fill her heart. They had his scent now, his taste. They would know him and find him wherever he was. He was Kin.

She blinked back tears as she threw herself into his lap with an ‘oof’ from the larger guide. They stayed like that for a while, just enjoying each other’s presence. Eventually she climbed off and they got around to business.

A few clicks of the keyboard gave them seventeen buildings zoned for chemical manufacture and use. A few more clicks gave the six buildings with insecticide. Another click gave them zero buildings for the manufacture of Parathion or Phosphorus Pentasulfide.

“Damn.” She frowned. “Bupkis”

“What about other uses for the Phosphorus?” Cody volunteered. Brennan shook her head

“Parathion was found on the body. Wait…”

She paused.

“Forget manufacturing. What about distribution? What if they just rebottled it?”

Keys clicked.

“Yes” Cody grinned. “Fernando Chemical Processing. One of the last holdouts in the Doldrums. Closed down around ten years ago. Storage and re-distribution of several chemical including Parathion as well as Phosphorus Pentasulfide for other industrial uses. Located just one block away from where Cindy was found.”

Brennan smiled like a wolf that had just spotted its prey.

“Bingo.”

 

 

 

 

ok, taking a little liberty Phospherwhatsit Penterwhatnow but most of it is based in fact.

thank you so much everyone who likes and comments on my work. you guys keep me going. sneaking on work because my temp computer died the same day i got it. LOL. it cant be fixed until the weekend.

Thanks to barbara for Giving me props on the FB page.

I was half ‘yippie!’ and half cold sweating. ‘hey no pressure here’


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Someone is killing Guides and no one seems to notice. It’s up to ex military PI and unbonded Sentinel Brennan Sheppard solve the case. With the aid of linguist / rare book restorer / hippie Guide M. Regina Carter-Mckay, the black sheep of the Famous Carter Mckays, they must find a killer before another Guide dies.

The giant metal sliding doors to Fernando ChemP were almost rusted shut so Brennan carefully walked the perimeter looking for another way in , her wolves sniffing back and forth at her feet. A soft yelp brought her attention to a section of wall paneling that shifted to reveal and large opening and she squatted to examine it.

The makeshift door was heavy and only opened under pressure, it was well balanced and swung open without a sound. The hinges looked almost new and well oiled. The opening was big enough to let in a very tall very wide man or a man carrying a body. The warehouse beyond was dark against the bright sunlight. When the door was closed it seemed to blend completely into the rest of the wall and was kept so with a small latch.

No locks, just camouflage.

She knew that she should have told the cops about this, or at least let Cody back her up but she didn’t want to put him in hot water with the precinct. She also wanted a chance to look the place over before losing all access. Besides, she had back up enough now. Her wolves chuffed in agreement and with a deep breath she drew her weapon and stepped into the abyss.

She crouched, letting her eyes readjust to the dim light. Beams of sunlight crisscrossed through holes in the ceiling and broken window panes to spear through the shadows of massive rusted machines and crates left behind by the crumbling business. Pigeons cooing and the flapping of wings were the only sounds as she ghosted through the building, every quiet step throwing dust into the air that danced and floated on the sunbeams.

The office was small and stripped bare of anything valuable, so were the small store rooms and washroom and a thick layer of dust covered everything. No sign of anyone passing there recently. She pulled out a hastily folded printed map of the building, angling the paper into a nearby sunbeam so that she could read it carefully.

Staircase to the right, down two flights of stairs into the storage area, she stuffed the paper into her pocket and pulled out a small flashlight with black light filter. She clicked it on without the filter and held it up to the sight level of her gun before proceeding. The stairs were metal and clanked softly with each step. She ran her fingers along the hard cold metal and they came away dust free.

The air got colder as she went, damper. And she saw signs of a human presence. An oily foot print, men’s work boot. She pulled out her phone and took a snapshot of it next to a dollar she’d fished from her pocket. Hey, if it worked for Angie…

The safety door looked rusted shut but swung open easily. Brennan almost wished it would creak open ominously. It was too silent, too dark, it seemed as if something was waiting in the darkness, waiting and watching. Another safety door, easy to open as the first. Her world of sight a small circle of the flashlight’s beam. Everything else seemed not to exist as soon as it left the circle.

Her brothers stalked behind her, softly growling their unease.

“I’m with you man” she muttered softly, just to hear the sound of her own voice in the darkness.

Ten meters ahead, the scent of chemical was strong. Flashes came from her brothers. An image of Dr. Green, of the morgue, of the steel drawers and Cindy’s feet. Phosphorus Pentasulfide. She looked back at them for a moment, their eyes shining brilliantly in the dark. She pushed thanks across the bond and a cold nose touched her wrist.

There was one more door, its handle shiny with constant use. She flicked on the blue light filter and the entire corridor shone pink. Brennan deftly swabbed the pink dust with an evidence kit she’d swiped from the morgue and sealed it shut, slipping it into a plastic baggie then her jacket pocket.

Using another baggie she twisted the handle and the final door swung open just as the other did, flooding the corridor with light. Brennan winced and quickly brought one arm up to shade her eyes.

“Oh Cindy” she breathed.

The room beyond looked like a converted silo with the widest part being just fifteen feet across. The walls were grimy and caked with chemicals and filth and the sharp scent of blood. A ratty soiled mattress lay in the centre of the room, just below a small high opening in the ceiling. It looked as if someone had propped open the safety valve at the top of the silo to let in light and air.

Brennan gingerly stepped into the room, shining her black light into the shadows. Neon pink glinted off the old metal bucket in the corner, empty water bottles crushed and strewn to the side. A large cattle chain lay along the wall, one side welded to the wall, the other attached to a metal foot brace. The chain looked just long enough to reach the bed, the bucket and the door.

Brennan frowned and swallowed heavily. The place reeked of despair and she felt desolate just standing in the small dirty space. A small pile of clothes were bundled in the corner and she toed them apart slightly with her foot. Though thoroughly soiled and stained the faint pattern of the skirt Cindy was wearing the day she disappeared was still recognizable.

To think that the shy, young guide had spent days if not weeks in this hell hole made the sentinel in her howl in anger and pain. She flipped up her phone and took a few more pictures, a moan escaping her as she captured the ragged gouges left by desperate clawing hands. There was a broken fingernail in one of the deeper gouges, bright red polish against the dark brown of dry, caked blood.

Cindy’d had all her nails intact, her polish was clear if she wore any. This must be from before, another woman who met her end in this grisly place. Brennan ached to take an evidence sample but she’d be guilty of tampering with evidence and it took almost all of her resolve to leave everything be for the police to find.

She thought about how desperate the other woman must have been. How afraid. How Cindy must have felt when she saw this and had realized that she was not the first and may not even be the last victim of this psycho.

She was examining the weld work on the heavy chain when the light above her head cut off abruptly. She whipped her head up to see the outline of a man’s head looking down at her from the bolt hole skylight. The bright sunlight lit the ends of his wild brown hair like they were on fire, casting a shadow across the face. Brennan yelled at him to freeze the head disappeared.

The brunette burst out of the doorway, white wolves leading the way as she ran through the dark corridor, the circle of light of her flashlight bouncing along the shadowed rusty pipes. She scaled the steps behind her brothers leaping unto a gangway that let to bolt-hole access. The flimsy wooden door was locked but she shouldered it open quickly, stumbling out into the blinding light of the midday sun.

Blinking rapidly, she spotted her quarry as he disappeared around a corner. She quickly clambered down the outer fire ladder and hit the ground running. Her blood pumped with the thrill of the chase as she growled along with her brothers, exhilaration flowing through her.

They quickly ate up the distance from the runner but what they had in speed, he had in knowledge of his surroundings. Twice she’d almost lost him among the buildings and that last time had her swearing in frustration as they ended up in a dead end alley, no sight of their prey.

It was a bit of a walk back to the car, he’d led them on a merry chase and both she and her wolves were weary and frustrated that their quarry had been lost. She ran her hands along their backs, praising them and reassuring them, as they all came down from an adrenaline high. They’d get another chance.

She’d almost had him today. The wolves had a part of his scent profile now. They would get their chance.

On her way out of the Doldrums she had to duck down in her car to avoid being seen by the Homicide Division Detectives Nwosu and Ramdass heading in with a CSI unit van. Just in time, she smirked. They seemed too preoccupied to notice her and for that she was glad. She really didn’t want to have to explain why she was at a crime scene before them.

After they rounded the corner she gunned her engine. She had a man to see about some wolves.

 

—————————————————————————

Cylus studied the wolf in front of him and the wolf studied him. He cocked his head to the side and so did the wolf. Brennan grinned behind her hand, trying to keep laughter in. The other wolf came up behind him and pressed a cold nose on the back of his neck, making him jump and let out a high meep which he would forever deny making. He cast a stern glance at the mischievous animal and it licked him on the chin.

Brennan gave up trying to hide and gave in to the laughter, falling to her side on the old couch. Three identical deadpan glares were sent her way and she laughed harder. She’d wanted to surprise him with her bonding and spirit animals but Cody, the rat, had already called and spilled the beans. He’d swept her into a huge hug that had made her feel all melty inside and she’d clutched him back just as tightly.

“I always knew you had it in you” he’d whispered, “my beautiful, beautiful girl”

They’d sat together on the ratty couch she told him everything that had made her feel so joyous and so terrified at the same time. All the doubts she’d kept from Cody and Dr. Green, even from Reggie came pouring out of her mouth with stumbling words. Everything about this bond was nothing like she’d ever expected.

How could she be away from her guide right now? Shouldn’t they be nesting? It ached a little to be away from each other but nothing like how she’d read it would be this soon after bonding. What were they going to do now? Would Reggie live with her? Should she move in with the blonde? What about their jobs? What about the centre? They would have to register, what would their families say? What if people found out about her wolves? About Reggie? All the questions that had been spinning in her mind since this morning were making her dizzy.

Cylus had listened to every random thought that had spilled out of her head without censor and after she’d finally rambled herself into silence, he’d addressed her concerns one by one.

No, they would not necessarily nest. Many low-levels didn’t nest to the degree of their high level counterparts. Yes, they would have to meet and do sensory immersion regularly and not shy away from it. Yes, that meant lots of sex. It really was the best way to have physical, mental and emotional contact at a level their Sentinel Guide spirits needed.

No, they would not need to register at the centre in person, he’d often acted on other lowflyers behalf when it came to the Centre. He would be honoured to do the same for them. As for their spirit animal situation, they would hold off on telling anyone more than their small circle. Too much attention would not be good before they’d settled how they would approach it.

As for the homes and jobs, she was just borrowing worries. He took her hands in his.

“This time you spend with your Guide is precious. Enjoy it. It is Sacred and it is a time for you two to build the foundation of your relationship and to strengthen your bond. Everything else will fall into place.”

After she made him promise that she could be there when he told the Wolf of Mibu about her brothers just so she could see his face, she said her goodbyes and headed back to Reggie’s.

 

——————————————————————————-

It was just after the lunch time rush when Brennan pulled into the small parking lot behind Reggie’s Building. Gathering fragrant bags of food from the passenger seat, she set them on the roof of the car as she locked it. Her stomach rumbled loudly, reminding her of the snatched bites and cups of coffee she’d lived on for the past couple of days.

Suddenly her brothers growled and she froze, alert. She couldn’t see anyone in the car window reflection but that did not mean that no one was there. She search each shadow and for any movement among the cars. As one her brothers turned toward one of the deepest shadows and a young man stepped out into the light, clapping slowly.

“I wondered if you could sense me if I suppressed my Guide essence. Looks like you’re not quite the disappointment we all expected you to be, Brennan Elisabeth Sheppard.”

Brennan felt her hackles raise. Who the hell was this punk? And who the hell was this ‘we’ who seemed to know a lot about her?

He leaned against a gunmetal grey 50’s Vintage Porshe Speedster and gave her an appraising look as he buffed his nails against his shirt. His oozed smug boredom and arrogance.

“But then again, one never knows what my loon of a sister has flitting though her head from one moment to the next.” He shrugged airily.

Brennan narrowed her eyes. High Level Guide. talking about his“Loon” of a sister. Someone connected to Brennan only recently. Gears clicked and snapped into place.

“Samea Carter-McKay, I presume.”

His eyes were sharp and belied his utterly fake smile.

“You do presume correctly Sentinel.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

a bit of a cliffhanger but it’s really late and i’m still on work. my computer guy bailed on me but hopefully he can fix me up before the long weekend. short work week yay!


	15. Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Someone is killing Guides and no one seems to notice. It’s up to ex military PI and unbonded Sentinel Brennan Sheppard solve the case. With the aid of linguist / rare book restorer / hippie Guide M. Regina Carter-Mckay, the black sheep of the Famous Carter Mckays, they must find a killer before another Guide dies.

He cut a dashing figure with his tailored shirt and slacks and his afternoon polo tan. Platinum glinted in the sunlight from his expensive watch and championship pinky ring. Blonde curls and the same blue eyes Reggie had inherited from their father made him look earnest and charming if it wasn’t for the cruel twist of his mouth.He seemed too young to be the head of a multi-million dollar lab on the cutting edge of genetics research but Brennan knew all too well that looks could be deceiving.

“You seem to have me at a disadvantage” she leaned nonchalantly against her own car, stuffing her nervousness and apprehension deep down. “… you seem to know more about me than I about you Sammy…can I call you Sammy?”

Something hard flashed in his eyes but he kept that congenial look on his face. Brennan felt a sharp pierce of satisfaction but kept her poker face. She would have to step carefully, who knew how a wrong step here could affect her or her guide.

“Why are you here Sammy?“

“Can’t I just be a concerned brother come to visit his sister?” As if butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth.

“Actually no because as far as I know you and Reggie don’t really talk much.”Ever since you sent her away.

“Regina” he corrected, “ and I have an understanding. In my parents absence I am the legal holder of my dear dear sister’s conservatorship. Oh, you didn’t know? It seems like sissy’s been keeping secrets from her sentinel.”

Brennan wanted to smack the mocking amusement right off his rotten face.

“That means…” He continued, “ that as per the agreement to her release from treatment, a family member has legal right over all of her actions and relations according to the centre and her guide abilities until the centre deems her fit to function of her own. It is up to me to oversee everything she does as a guide…”

His bared his teeth in a parody of a smile.

“… even her bonding.”

Brennan clenched her fists.

“You can’t affect a bond after the fact. That’s bond interference. There are laws against…”

“Laws written mainly withgreat influence by the Centre, Sentinel. You should look up the rules on conservatorship. Makes for an interesting read.”

Brennan’s mind raced. She had to keep calm, keep her cool. She had to figure this out. What could he want and why now? How did he even know…

“How did you even find out about us so fast?” she demanded.

“I have all activities to do with Regina that pass throughthe Centre flagged directly to me.” He chuckled at her incredulous look. “You could imagine my surprise when I was informed that my wayward sister managed to snatch herself a bond. And a Sheppard no less. I just had to find about more about the Sentinel who captured our little black sheep’s heart. It took my less than twenty minutes to find out all about you. Another half an hour to get your military files forwarded. You’d be amazed at what legacy gets you at the centre these days.”

He tilted his head and gave her body a slow once over. It left her feeling groped and dirty.

“But I guess you should know a little about that wouldn’t you Sentinel?”

“In fact, “ he added thoughtfully, “… it’s too bad you and I were not compatible, you certainly are pretty enough arm candy and your wounded veteran shtick would be a publicity coup. But alas, no amount of valor on the battlefield or how hot that tight ass of your looks in a dress can make up for the fact your tests came back so low, you’re practically mundane and disowned as a Sheppard in all but name. “

 

He drawled in calm disdain,

“I guess you and Regina are suited after all. Two freaks in a pod. At least she’s good for something in this family if she bonds correctly, to the right kind of family. Pity though, I would have liked to see how you handled in bed. You look like you’d need a firm hand… like any thoroughbred. Wild and waiting to be broken by a suitable rider.”

Any other words that might have rolled off his forked tongue were cut off with a yelp as Brennan shoved him back against the car, her forearm across his neck, pressing into his throat. She was pissed, beyond pissed. Not only did this little shit insult her thoroughly as a person, a woman and a soldier but he had the utter gall to bandy about severing the bond between her sentinel self and her bonded guide.

“Unhand me you brute” he gasped as he struggled against her grip.

She took a breath to calm herself. She was on the cusp of going feral on his punk ass. Only the fear of what he might have over Reggie made her pause. He bucked against her madly as his eyes dilated.

Wait a mother fucking minute, her brain screeched. Was this puissant hard?

He bucked against her again and she jumped back in disgust. They both stood there breathing hard.

“So forceful” he whispered and she shuddered, feeling completely icked out.

With a snarl she had him turned around with his arm twisted behind his back in a painful grip. He yelped and swore and bucked again, this time in pain.

“Unhand me” he demanded.

”You need to shut up now asshole”

A screeching came from above them and Brennan looked up to see a small cream and brown mammal losing its mind on top of the car. It jumped and flipped, screeching as it kept rushing the two humans then jumping away at the last second.

Samea’s Spirit Animal, the Pine Martin, her brain provided.

Seeing its distress showed her how upset the Guide she had pinned truly was and she felt a sense of dark satisfaction. This little brat had gotten his own way for too goddamned long.

“UNHAND ME SENTINEL”

Under other circumstances, his Guide Voice probably would have made her let him go but her rage and his fear made it almost ineffectual. She twisted the arm a little more and relished in the squeal it elicited. She was hovering on the cusp of going feral and it was taking all of her control not to break him in half.

“I don’t care who you are….” She growled into his ear, “If you try to come between me and my guide I will make it my life’s mission to destroy everything you hold dear and when I come to send your punk ass to hell, it’s going to seem like heaven after what I’ve put you through, are we clear?”

He nodded. She twisted that arm tighter. “ARE WE CLEAR?”

“Yes, yes you bitch” he screamed.

Brennan ducked as something went flying past her head. “What the Fuck?”

The Pine Martin had defecated and had thrown its filth at her. She goggled at the crassness of it and frowned when it loaded up for another volley. Samea chuckled under his breath as she ducked again.

“So that’s how you want to play huh?” she hissed. “Ok, let’s play.”

The Pine Martin squealed as it was pinned by a massive paw. The giant white wolf seemed to dwarf the car as it brought its snarling mouth full of razor sharp teeth millimeters way from the animal’s terrified eyeball. She felt a shudder go through Samea and she leaned in close to his ear.

“This is how it’s gonna be Sammy. You’re going to go home and report back to your parents and centre that everything’s copacetic around here. You won’t bother Regina or make any trouble for her unless you want everyone to know you lied about your sister all those years ago.”

He stiffened and tried to look back at her.

“I’m her bonded Sammy my boy, of course I’ve seen her pheonix. Sissy doesn’t keep any secrets from her sentinel.”

He glanced back to where his Pine Martin was whimpering under a white paw.

“And if I don’t stay away?”

Brennan smirked as a large thump seemed to shake the car and a second low growl joined the first. Samea’s eyes bugged out and his jaw dropped a second wolf’s snarling maw came barely an inch away from his eyeball. Hot lupine breath fanned their faces and Brennan felt the guide go limp in her arms.

Slowly she released him and he slid to the ground, his Pine Martin scrambling to hide behind him away from sharp teeth and claws. Brennan gathered up the bags of food and frowned at how cold they felt. She looked back to where the Guide sat mute and unseeing, jumping and trembling at the sounds made by the wolves jumping and chuffing at each other and at the food in her arms.

She nudged with her boot and he looked up.

“Are we clear?”

He hesitated, then nodded.

“Crystal.”

 

She made it around to the row of storefronts before her knees gave out and she sunk unto the stoop of one of the stores, uncaring of the startled glances and curious looks of passers-by.

“Jesus, Mary and Joseph” she breathed.

This was not good. She needed to talk to Regina. She needed to talk to Cylus.

What else could happen today?

She smacked her head with her hand. Fuck, I’ve gone and jinxed myself.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Really short but i had to get it out. have to run now. time for class


	16. Chapter 16

The microwave pinged just as Brennan finished her conversation with Cylus. Soon she would know everything the LowFlyers knew about conservatorship and what could be done about Samea. She’d fucked up, badly. She’d let him get under her skin and now he knew of her wolves. Men like him wouldn’t stay cowed for long. They had to get on top of this.

She leaned against the doorframe and watched her guide putter about the small back room of the shop. When Brennan had finally calmed, she’d scrambled the bags and booked it to Reggie’s store. Her guide had taken one look at her face and had flipped the closed sign and the lock, deciding it was time for a lunch break anyway.

She’d led the sentinel into the back room that served as a mini kitchen ‘ _for when I work nights doing translations_ ’ and had set the now cold food to warm. She’d listened to the story of Brennan’s run in with her brother and hadn’t spoken a word as Brennan called Cylus.

“I fucked up”

Came the whispered confession.

Reggie quickly spun to face her sentinel

“What?... no” she denied, “I should have told you. It’s just been so long I didn’t think it had any real effect anymore. More like a non-issue really, maybe deep in my mind I thought it wouldn’t matter because I would never bond.”

“Huh” she shrugged, “I guess if you hear something enough you really do start to believe it.”

“Hey” Brennan crossed the small space with a step and wrapped her arms around the blonde. “No one is blame here. This whole bonding thing? Let’s face it…we don’t know what the hell this is or what we’re doing. What we do know is that we’re ‘it’ for each other right?”

Reggie nodded and smiled, slipping her hands under the brunette’s jacket. Brennan grinned in return at the wandering hands and continued.

“So that means we have to talk, really talk. This isn’t like any bond I’ve heard of. Cylus told me that lowlevels don’t nest as much and as much as I don’t want to be away from you, it’s not killing us to be apart. We’re going to have to figure all of this stuff out ourselves… together.“

 She placed a soft chaste kiss on Reggie’s lips. “So, partners?”

“Partners”  The blonde nodded again. “So… talk?”

A grumbling came from Brennan’s gut and she shrugged sheepishly. “Eat… then talk”

As they ate, Brennan told Reggie about the chemicals on Cindy’s body that led to her sprint through the Doldrums. The Guide was not happy that she’d gone in without backup and proceeded to state three different scenarios, in graphic detail, on how things could have gone sideways in an instant.

Brennan was torn between her guide’s utterly adorable frowny face and fork –in-hand waving and the sobering words that were coming out of her mouth. She frowned, she hadn’t given her guide a second thought before chasing after the unsub.

She’d chased after an unknown enemy into his territory without even knowing what he was capable of. If she’d done that in the marines, her CO would have sent her back to boot camp.

She could have run right into a trap and nobody would ever know. She’d been blocks away from Fernando ChemP where Cody would have believed her to be. She would have died and left her bonded guide alone. The food turned to ash in her mouth and she fumbled for a drink of water.

A hand touched her cheek and she held it here with her own. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t even think…”

Reggie shushed her softly. “It’s ok. You’re ok. That’s why we have to do this talking thing right? We’ve been living alone so long we don’t know how to be ‘not-alone’. We have to learn how to be ‘not –alone’.”

Brennan brought her guide in for a kiss and pressed another to her neck. “Maybe we can teach each other how to be ‘not-alone’ people? Together?” Another feather light kiss.

She could feel the warmth of her guide against her own as she sighed “Together.”

 

\------------------------------------------------------------------------

They just finished clearing the garbage away when Reggie said matter of factly,

“I’ve always had a secret fantasy about having illicit work sex. You know, quick and kinda rough, up against a book shelf or against this counter right here with our clothes on. Knowing that right outside the glass window there are people walking up and down the board walk, none the wiser”

Brennan raised an eyebrow, her libido going from zero to sixty in an instant.

“Far be it for me to deny my bonded guide her desire when it is in my power to do so. Cylus did say that we should immerse ourselves in each other in every way to help strengthen the bond.”

She began to shrug off her jacket but quick words stopped her.

“Clothes on, I said.” The tone was commanding and Brennan felt her pussy tighten.

“Yes, Ma’am” she exhaled.

She lifted her guide to sit on the small counter, her hands slipping under the yellow cotton tank top to touch skin. She could feel her guides lust and love strumming along skin and in each breath as they kissed.

Emotions and thoughts echoed across the bond. The feel of soft cotton, rough denim and cool leather. The breathy gasp when the metal of a zipper runs against sensitive flesh. Brennan had pulled the yellow tank top down to reveal an equally yellow lace bra. She licked and nipped along the skin as she pulled the bra down as well and shuddered at the blonde’s moan as she captured the pebbled nipple in her mouth.

Soon the other breast was free and Brennan pulled back a bit to stare at her guide. Reggie was flushed and panting, eyes bright with love. The fact that her breasts were exposed while the rest of her was still fully clothes pulled hard at a trigger deep inside the brunette. She looked utterly debauched and wanton and Brennan came undone, almost crossing her legs.

“Book shelf right?” she moaned. The blonde nodded and they were soon out of the small back room and up against the back wall. The shelf shook but remained steady as they writhed against it. Fumbling hands wandered and grabbed and caressed and somehow got Brennan’s jeans open as her fingers stole under Reggie’s skirt.

She paused in surprise. “ Commando?”

Reggie blushed and shrugged. “What can I say? I’m a free spirit.”

Brennan grinned and leaned in for a kiss, thrusting her tongue into that not mouth just as her fingers found home. Reggie moaned into the kiss as Brennan went straight for that sweet spot. The blonde’s hands slipped beneath Brennan’s pullover and cupped her breasts, squeezing the nipples through the bra. They settled against something cold and she startled.

“My tags”

“Oh” Reggie bit her lip.

Slowly she drew the small metal plates by their chain from under the pullover. She looked at Brennan.

“I just remembered another part of my fantasy.” She purred.

She slowly backed away, stepping toward the small table where she did her palm readings. The dog tags were still in her hand and they soon grew taut around Brennan’s neck. She gave them a slight tug.

“Up an’ at ‘em Soldier.”

Brennan gave a growl that started from deep within, her sentinel essence shuddering with a desperate need to own and be owned by the guide, this siren.

They hit the table with a thump, Reggie’s skirts hitched up to her waist. She mewled as the brunette’s jeans zipper rubbed against her and the pain /pleasure ricocheted across the bond and though the brunette like a lightning bolt. She kissed her apology as her fingers sunk once again into tight, wet heat.

Every spike of pleasure seemed to pulse along her nerves straight to her pussy. She tracked scorching hot kisses down Reggie’s neck to her breasts, sucking and running her teeth over the trembling flesh. With each gasp the blonde would tug at the dog tags clenched in her hand, keeping the brunette’s mouth on her body.

Brennan could feel her Guide’s hunger for her, an utter craving to be devoured by and to devour another being. Her fingers strove deeper and her pace quickened. Reggie was moaning continuously now, uncaring that just a short distance away, the world outside went along its merry way.

With a swift bite to the underside of her breast, Reggie came hard and with a cry, pulling Brennan along the bond into orgasm as well. For a few seconds, Brennan could see as Reggie could. Their bond flowed between them, white and gold and blue. It was breathtaking and beautiful and wondrous beyond description. Their very souls were reaching out to one another, building the bond- strengthening it. Strand by strand, breath by breath.

The sentinel kissed her guide hard, pushing all her love and faith and hope for the future through the bond. She wasn’t all that good with words and she wanted her guide to know how she truly felt while she had the chance. Reggie gasped and her eyes grew moist. She gave the brunette such a look of open love and affection that Brennan found herself tearing up too. _Dammit, always crying ike a bunch of big babies I tell you._

Reggie laughed, clear like a bell and they sat up, cleaning up and readjusting clothes and touching more that was necessary. Joy and satisfaction buzzed along the bond as touches and kisses lingered.

Reggie had just flipped the sign over to open when Brennan got the call.

It was Cylus. “We need to talk. Bring Regina with you.”

Brennan looked at her guide and took a breath. “You up for this?”

The guide quickly grabbed her keys and stuffed them into a ratted quilted bag.

“I am as my Sentinel needs me… always.”


End file.
